Ugly
by Jailbirdy
Summary: Ugly is the new beautiful, he tells her. Luigi/Amber
1. Chapter 1

Ugly by Jailbird

Authors Note: This story is heavily Luigi/Amber later down the road. It is also includes a lot Chuck Palahniuk's themes and ideas, so if you've read many of his books... you will either like it a lot, or be bored by the references because you've already read something similar.

* * *

Little Carmela Largo hunches over the coffee table in the living room. Copy paper is stacked and strewn around her, on the khaki colored carpet, cluttering the smooth mahogany table. Crayons pool in her lap, gathering in her dress where the skirt is bunched up over her knees. Her dark hair pools around her face, spilling over her drawing. Her young features are locked in an expression of intense concentration.

On the the television, Pooh Bear and Piglet and Rabbit and friends are having an adventure. To little Carma, Pooh Bear is as real as any person she has ever met. She fights to capture his visage on paper, to emulate his adventures, and to create her own. As much as she struggles, however, her version of Pooh does not do justice to the actual bear.

She grabs a pearly pink eraser and attacks the page with it. Brushing the eraser shreds onto the carpet absentmindedly, she presses her pencil to the paper and tries again. This drawing is even worse, she thinks. It needs to be perfect, like Pooh Bear is, but her copy of him is all wrong.

"Hey squirt," says a voice behind her. She spins around and knocks her knee violently against the table. Tears spring to her eyes but Carmela is too old to cry over bumped knees, so she bites her lip and ignores the throbbing pain.

Luigi vaults over the back of the couch and lands, plop, on the cushion behind Carmela. She knows at that moment that she will have to leave anyways, but decides to push her luck and stay awhile longer. Luigi stretches his arms over the back of the couch, his legs towards the coffee table, subsequently kicking Carmela in the back.

"Hey," she whines. Luigi doesn't apologize. Instead he trails his toes through the drifts of paper, flips them over, displacing and rumpling them. Carma quickly picks up her drawings, but he's already ruined some of them. He finds what he's looking for under a illustration of Eeyore in a tent. Carmela dives for the remote control but her big brother is too fast. He sweeps it up and shoves her roughly against the coffee table.

"Get the fuck out of here, Carma. I'm watching some grown-up shows now," he pokes her in the shoulder with his big toe and she pushes his leg away.

"I'm coloring in here," she objects, glowering up at him.

He barks a laugh and snatches the papers from her arms. "Why bother? A little kid like you can't draw anything worth looking at. What is this?" he sneers, pointing roughly to a little picture drawn in yellow and red crayon.

"It's Pooh with a pot of honey!" Carmela explains, her voice shrill as she tries to take the paper back. Luigi holds it just out of her reach.

"It looks like a fucking dog. A dog with a boner."

Carmela shrieks and Luigi tosses the papers on the ground. "It does not!" She hollers at him, although she doesn't know what a boner was. "It looks like Pooh! With a pot of honey!" Collecting the papers in her arms, she feels hot tears sting her eyes. She scampers off with only half of her pictures and none of her art supplies. She knows that a gentern will be around later to pick them up and return them to her, if Luigi doesn't ruin them for fun.

Carmela barely makes it to her bedroom before she bursts into sobs. Hot tears erupt from her eyes and she wipes them away with her wrists as quickly as they appear. She looks at her picture again from behind damp eyelashes. The red and yellow shimmers before her, and a fat teardrop plops onto the paper, right onto Pooh's nose.

It does sort of look like a dog, Carmela thinks, and crumples up the offensive drawing. After a moment, she grabs the next drawing off the pile and rips it in half. One by one, she destroys all of her terrible drawings, until there's nothing left but a pile of ruined paper.


	2. Chapter 2

When Carmela is fifteen, she decides she wants to be an artist. She announces this at the breakfast table, where Luigi and her father are sitting, engaged in their own morning activities. It is the closest thing to "family time" in the Largo household. Pavi is nowhere to be seen.

Luigi scoffs at Carmela's declaration, but doesn't look up from his laptop. Rotti folds the newspaper he's been reading and sets it aside on the table, slowly, the way he does everything. The corners of his mouth droop into a puzzled frown, and he asks, "What brought you to this decision?"

"I've always loved to paint, daddy," Carma tells him.

"You'll never be any good at it," Luigi pipes in, eyes still glued to his computer screen. Rotti glares at him but Carmela only shrugs.

"You should be happy, big brother... I'll be a successful artist, and I won't want to run Geneco. So you can have it."

"You were never any competition. Go play with your crayons or something."

"Don't listen to your brother. You are magnificently talented, and I would be proud to watch you become a famous artist." Rotti says. Carmela sees her brother roll his eyes, but she ignores him.

"But to be an artist, I'll need some supplies."

"Absolutely. I'll have a gentern take you shopping this afternoon."

"And a studio," Carmela adds, flashing her most endearing smile.

Rotti hesitates, but he has never been able to say no to his little girl. "I'll arrange something later today. Perhaps you can have one of the empty rooms on the fifth floor."

"Oh, thank you! I promise, I'll make you the proudest daddy in the world," Carmela squeals, hopping excitedly on one foot. She skips around to Rotti's side of the table and kisses him on the cheek. Luigi makes a disgusted noise. On her way out, Carmela passes him and murmurs under her breath that he's only jealous, because she never kisses him. He looks confused and furious, and Carmela winks slyly at him before dancing out of the room.

* * *

Later that day, Carmela Largo is escorted to an arts and crafts superstore by a gentern named Sue, or Sal, or something equally unmemorable. Sue (Sal, Sandy, etc) tries to point out the tools that Carmela will need to get started, but she doesn't listen. Genterns can be so obnoxious, Carmela thinks as she runs her fingertips over the rows and rows of oil paints in brightly colored tubes.

She snatches up supplies, tossing them into the cart that Sal pushes behind her. The items in the cart pile high, until they threaten to spill over the plastic edges of the shopping cart. Linseed and drying oils, palettes, palette knives, paint thinner. Cadmium yellow and red. Ultramarine blue, mars black, Veronese green. Phthalo blue. Titanium white. She gathers great armfuls of every tube that catches her eye and dumps it into place into the cart. She doesn't check the price tags.

Four small canvases go into the cart, followed by three medium, then two large. Looking at them, Carmela can already see her masterpieces. They're beautiful.

By now, a store assistant is following her around with another cart, but Carmela hardly notices. Brushes. She doesn't know what to look for, so she automatically goes for the most expensive sets. Sable hair brushes drop into the cart, in all different shapes; angle, round, fan brushes, rigger brushes, something called a filbert tip. The gentern makes sure that stiffer, hog hair and camel brushes make it into the cart as well.

More paint. Cyprus orange. Italian pink, red ochre, Spanish earth. Slate black, ivory black. A set of watercolors, more brushes. A thick pad of watercolor paper. Graphite pencils in different sizes and levels of softness. A sketchbook. Carmela picks up a book about how to oil paint, but puts it back. She already knows how to paint and if she runs into any problems, daddy can hire someone to teach her.

When she finally makes her purchase, she's filled two and a half carts. She doesn't know how much it all costs because she doesn't look; just hands her card to the clerk.

On the ride home, Carmela can scarcely bear to wait. She sighs and slumps against the dark window, tangling her fingers in her (now strawberry blond) hair, fogging up the glass with her breath. She gazes out and imagines painting the dark buildings, the rubble, the grim, oppressive sky. She imagines painting in trees, with long white trunks and fresh little leaves. She raises her hand to the window and pinches her thumb and forefinger, as if she is holding an invisible paint brush.

Beneath her hand, behind her eyes, cadmium red and yellow flowers spill from the alleyways and spring up between the slabs of cracked cement.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Forgive me for how much this chapter sucks.

* * *

Rotti Largo makes good on his word and fixes one of the fifth floor rooms up as an art studio. For the next several days, Carmela barely leaves the room. Hours disappear as if by magic while she works on her paintings. She lays down huge, bold swatches of gray and blue. Then she goes back in with a smaller brush and paints in the empty sockets of windows and doorways. With a fine, hog hair brush she details everything from the gravel in the streets to the stars in the sky.

Genterns bring meals to her, which they had done most of her life anyways. Even when Carmela is hungry, she tries not to eat very much, and not right away, to maintain her image as an artist haunted by her work. Paint drenches her white, laminate smock and speckles the floor. The genterns who bring food and fresh supplies ooh and ah over her paintings. They point to the canvas with their manicured nails, they comment on angles and shadows and depth. They talk among themselves about what a genius their Carmela is. She is such a visionary. Such a master of her craft.

Carmela accepts their praise with just the right amount of humility. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. The bridge of her nose is smeared with blue paint, and a smattering of yellow traces the line of her jaw.

Little Carmela is as much a masterpiece as her painting is. The young, aspiring, dedicated artist, painting her pictures, wishing only to make the world a more beautiful place. Although her painting is a picture of the city, it is actually a self-portrait. Everything an artist paints is a self-portrait. Everything you ever do, everything you create, is just a reflection of yourself.

Carmela Largo finishes her painting after six days. She takes a shower. She spends an hour with her genterns, picking out an outfit, picking out her hair. Another half hour for a gentern to do her makeup. Another hour in the salon. Assistants invite her family up to the studio for the unveiling of Carmela's painting. (she's certain her brothers will whine about it, but attend anyways)

When she steps into the studio, every set of eyes in the room swivels to look at her, but Carmela stands with complete confidence. She knows that she is a striking beauty, in a tailored black dress from Luca Luca's fall line. Her blond hair is pulled back and pinned up, except for one lock of hair that falls over her left ear, giving her an elegantly disheveled appearance.

She struts up to her canvas, which is covered by a red velvet sheet. She hadn't thought to cover the it, but someone had. A gentern catches her eye and winks. Carmela flashes her a grateful smile.

Her audience waits, at various levels of attention, seated in folding chairs around the room. Pavi has pulled a gentern into his lap, and whispers something Italian in her ear, something that makes her giggle and blush. Luigi is, surprisingly, watching her intensely. As soon as she notices this, he looks away quickly.

Sitting towards the center of the room is Rotti Largo, flanked by his henchwomen. He appears so out of place, such an important man in a little metal folding chair, that a genuine smile creeps across Carmela's face.

She clears her throat and looks around the room. The whispering stops and everyone turns their gaze on her. "Signore, signori, I have gathered you here to be the first to view my new painting. I call this piece, _In it's Wake."_

After a brief pause for effect, Carmela takes hold of the corners of the sheet and jerks it with relish. The canvas rocks precariously, but luckily steadies itself and doesn't fall off the easel.

"This piece is an artistic interpretation of a future, in which human society collapses and nature begins to retake the Earth." she explains.

For a moment, nobody says anything, nobody claps or whispers or even breaths. For a moment, Carmela doesn't breath. After what seems like forever, Pavi begins to clap, like an aristocrat, the fingertips of his left hand just lightly patting his cupped right palm.

"Bravi, little Carmela, it is-a beautiful. Truly a masterpiece," he croons. The genterns quickly pick up on the applause. Rotti joins in. He cups his hands and slams them together in big rounds of whooping, enthusiastic applause.

But for some reason, Carmela isn't looking at them. She is looking at Luigi, who is still looking at the painting. The only person really looking at it, maybe. She watches his eyes flicker over the canvas, surveying the large swatches of gray and black. She watches him take in the stark contrast of the birch trees against dark sky, the fresh green shoots against the asphalt. She watches his brow furrow with concentration, his mouth pucker, his head tilt so slightly to the right.

She had expected Luigi to be dismissive. Maybe even to jeer, to poke fun at her first real painting, but she certainly hadn't expected him to study it closely. Carmela suddenly notices that the room is sliding back into silence, and people are shuffling awkwardly.

With her most winning smile, she bows her head in a sort of faux-modest courtesy, and the audience visibly relaxes. "Thank you all for coming... if you anyone has questions or comments, feel free to approach me."

With a slight nod she dismisses the assembly. Her father comes up and tells her how proud he is to have a daughter of such vision and talent, but what a strange subject she chose to illustrate! In his opinion, the human species will never relinquish their hold on the world, he tells her. He tells her, the human spirit is one to fight the most impossible of battles, and to succeed against all odds.

Carmela shrugs and sips a glass of sparkling apple cider. Everyone else is drinking champagne. A gentern approaches with a silver tray of tiny, elaborate snacks, but Carmela sends her away. She doesn't know what to say to her father, because she doesn't have any opinion on the issue. The meaning behind the painting wasn't her own. After Carmela painted it, a gentern helped her make up the title and the explanation.

"You're probably right," she tells Rotti. She smiles, as if she cares at all. She wishes her father would say something about the painting itself. Something about her clever use of of an angle brush to create perfect zinc white highlights on a pile of rubble, or the seamless blending of Cadmium green and Phthalo blue green in the shadowed canopy of an oak tree. Instead, he pats her in the back and walks away, her henchwomen tailing him. One of them bumps into Carmela on the way past, making her spill her glass of cider. "Watch where you're going," Carmela hisses, but the women doesn't even glance back.

For the next hour, a parade of family members, genterns, and all manner of household staff approach Carmela. They shower her with polite praise and light suggestions, ask her questions about brushes and inspirations and references. Ask her about future paintings. Ask her about gallery openings. Carmela smiles politely and answers questions as best as she can. Yes, she has a few ideas for new paintings. Maybe with watercolors, or acrylics. She might be painting a mural sometime soon. Yes, the bricks were done with a number 2 camel hair brush, flat tip.

The crowd begins to taper out, and Carmela looks around the room with growing disappointment. Sometime during the rush of admiration, Luigi had slipped out. Of course, Carmela thinks. As if she actually thought he would say something nice. As if he would say _anything._

Without bothering to make any formal goodbyes, she shoves her cider glass at a nearby gentern and stalks out of the studio. Her black heels click, click, click on the marble floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees herself reflected in the glossy black walls. Although dark and obscure, it is obvious that her reflection is that of a fifteen year old girl in an outfit suited for a much older woman. A child playing dress-up. Carmela click, click, clicks down the hallway, avoiding her own gaze.

When the elevator doors slide open, Luigi is standing before her, like a hallucination. She feels like she should say something but nothing volunteers itself to her lips.

"I was just looking for you," Luigi growls, pulling her into the elevator. "Where are you headed?"

"Um, up to my room," Carmela says. She tosses her head to flip a (real) stray lock of hair out of her face.

"Fine," he says, pushing the button for her. "Anyways, I wanted to say something about your drawing."

"Painting," she corrects him. He shakes his head.

"Whatever, okay? It was really good, for your first oil painting. I liked the trees and shit." Carmela blinks and doesn't respond for a long moment, unsure of what to say. She's partially certain that he's being sarcastic, and if she thanks him, he'll laugh and tell her that he was just kidding, obviously. As if anything she created could be good. As if.

"But, you won't get anywhere with paintings like that," he continues, and Carmela sighs and rolls her eyes. That sounds more like her big brother. "Nobody wants to look at pretty pictures anymore. If they did, they would just look at a hologram, or watch a movie. People wanna be shocked. They wanna feel something. You know?"

Carmela says she doesn't know, just as the elevator slides to a stop. The doors open, and she Carmela invites Luigi into her room to talk more. After a hesitation, he follows her inside.

Technically, Carmela's "room" is the entire floor. a bedroom, a bathroom, a half-bath, a large closet and two smaller closets, and a sitting room for entertaining guests. They emerge now into the sitting room, redecorated nearly every week by high-profile interior designers, to suit Carmela's every whim. One week, a modern Zen room, with slick black and white leather upholstery and low, dark wood coffee tables. Another week, a fancy Victorian parlor, complete with a glass chandelier, over sized plush furniture with tasseled trims, and enormous paintings in golden frames.

This week the room is a minimalistic white. A starched white carpet stretches wall to white wall, a white Berber rug in the middle of the room does nothing to break up the monotony. Two white couches face each other, a white coffee table crouches between them. There are little white throw pillows on the couch. A flat screen television takes up most of one wall. A canvas adorns each of the walls above the couches, and each canvas is completely blank, except one symmetrical red spot right in the middle.

Amber sits on one couch, Luigi sits on the one opposite. He looks around. "You've changed it since I was here."

"Actually, I've changed it three times." A gentern wanders in and asks tentatively if Miss Sweet and Mister Largo would like anything or drink, or something to eat? Carmela waves her hand dismissively and Luigi just glares. She scuttles away quickly.

"Look, as I was saying, paintings are garbage these days. Nobody wants to look at some old shit they can see anywhere. I had a girlfriend who was an artist, that's how I know this. She used to do all kinds of crazy shit and call it art. Like, she would hire this guy to act like a dog, and chain him up, fucking balls-naked in a kennel. He'd act all crazy and growl at everyone and they thought it was real great, real fucking edgy."

"I don't see what this has to do with me," sniffs Carmela, who resents him saying that paintings are garbage, although she's pretty sure he didn't mean to offend her this time.

"If you want people to like your art, you have to do something people will remember you for. Gross art or stuff with a political message is really in right now."

"It doesn't sound beautiful, or like art at all," Carmela protests.

Luigi shrugs. "Well, it is. Ugly is the new beautiful, and you'd better get with the program. Or you won't be an artist for very long."

Carmela winds her loose hair around her index finger and considers this. She liked for things to be beautiful and perfect, but maybe perfect art is not beautiful, anymore. If her brother is telling the truth and not just yanking her chain, a perfect piece of art just has to convey a message. She can do that.

"Well. Thanks, Luigi. I mean, seriously." She crosses her legs, uncrosses them, recrosses them the other way. "Thanks."

"Whatever. I just don't want you embarrassing me with that lame painting shit." He stands up to leave but Carmela tells him to wait.

"What happened to your girlfriend, anyways?"

"Huh?" he asks over his shoulder.

"The artist."

"Oh," he says. "She said she loved me, but she was really in love with her art."

Carmela remembers what Luigi said about the man hired for the artist's shows, the dog-man, and she's pretty sure she understands. "She cheated on you, didn't she?" Luigi doesn't reply. "So you killed her?" she asks, even though she knows the answer.

Luigi just laughs, and sees himself out.


	4. Chapter 4

Over the next few weeks, Carmela undergoes an intense transformation of body and spirit. She has her hair bleached bone white, and gets it cut so her bangs are always falling over her eyes. She wears a large amount of makeup to make her look like she's not wearing any makeup. Foundation to make her skin more pale. A subtle jaundiced blush around her eyes. A skin-colored lipstick, followed by a gloss to bring out the natural chapping of her lips. Contacts to make her eyes bright, pale blue, almost white. Stark black pupils.

Herself as a self-portrait.

Carmela Largo changes her name to Amber Sweet. "It sounds like a hooker name," Luigi tells her. "You sound like a fucking stripper or something."

"Exactly." She explains to him that it's a statement, about how we're all hookers and strippers to society. We all use each other. Everyone's boss is their pimp, every customer is a client who just wants you to figuratively suck them off. Luigi nods approvingly.

"Yeah, I get it. Edgy. People will like it."

"I know," she says, and flips her hair out of her eyes. Within a moment it's in her face again. It looks best that way, when it looks like she couldn't give a shit.

Rotti Largo is concerned with her new direction. He doesn't tell her so, but Amber can tell. He respects her independence and allows her to make her own decisions, to let her find her own identity, or some bullshit like that. He tries so hard to be a good father. It's sort of sweet, actually.

Amber Sweet is trying to create a work of art. She's trying to make something to shock people, to take people by the heart and shake them to their core. To express some fucking message that means something to her, some deep understanding of the world. To convey something. To express herself. An artist's obligation to the public. The problem is, Amber Sweet has no message. Nothing means anything to her, and therein the problem lies.

An artist can have all the talent in the world, but without inspiration, they don't have shit.

She's been struggling all day to have a great idea. She sits in her studio, perched on an uncomfortable brushed-metal stool. A legal pad lies open on her lap. The concrete floor around her is littered with wads of crumpled yellow paper. For a moment you might be reminded of young Carmela Largo, but on closer inspection, this is clearly Amber Sweet. Instead of Eeyore or Tigger, she is sketching china dolls with empty eyes surrounded by a flowers made of intricate metal and rubber parts.

Interesting, but it doesn't make a statement. Amber crumples it up and throws it on the ground to join the her other bad ideas on the floor.

Because she isn't coming up with anything on her own, she decides to visit Pavi. She isn't exactly close to him, but she isn't close to anyone, really. When Amber was young, Pavi usually got stuck with babysitting duty, since Luigi was too busy. Rotti could have just had a gentern babysit her (they certainly loved little Carma enough) but he wanted his sons to know responsibility, and to love and take care of their baby sister.

Nonetheless, she got passed off to genterns most of the time anyways. When Carma did manage to track down her big brothers, Luigi mostly picked on her and made her cry. Paviche had an uncanny ability for knowing when Carmela was in trouble, and he would often show up afterwards to comfort her. A few times, he tried to stop Luigi while he was harassing Carma, but all he got for his efforts was a bloodied nose or a black eye.

To Carmela, Pavi was her guardian angel. When Luigi would push her over and she scraped her knees, Pavi would kiss each knee, before putting a pink band-aid over them. When Luigi called her names and told her that she had a beak nose (incidentally, nose reshaping is Carmela's first surgery later on) Pavi hugged her and then looked very closely at her face.

Pavi had wiped a tear from her eye, and said, "Luigi is-a silly."

He said, "I see-a, two bene brown eyes. A perfect little nose," he said then, pinching her nose teasingly. She giggled and pushed his hand away.

"And an adorable smile. You look-a like a star, little Carma."

And Carmela believed him.

When Pavi was fourteen or fifteen, all of a sudden, he didn't have time for Carmela anymore. One day, after a run-in with Luigi where he told her that she wore too much make-up, like a child prostitute, Pavi never came around to comfort her. She waited in her room all day, sniffling and looking at her blotchy red face in the mirror. The mascara caked around her eyes had run down her face in twin black lines, like a clown's parody of tears.

Genterns came in to check on her, but she sent them away, waiting for her guardian angel. When Pavi never showed up, she went looking for him. She found him in the sitting room with some _girl_ breathing down his neck and another practically on his lap. They purred into his ears and he purred back, and Carmela stood in the doorway for nearly a minute before he noticed her, and she felt sick.

"Ah, Carmela, what do-a you need?" he finally asked.

"Luigi says I look like a child prostitute."

"He is-a wrong, although, perhaps you do wear too much-a makeup for your age."

"I do not," Carma protested, but Pavi had already turned his attention back to the girls. Carmela backed out of the doorway, defeated. Since then, she hadn't had much to do with her youngest brother. They weren't on bad terms, really, but Pavi seemed to have no time for her and Carmela didn't want his stupid attention, anyways. Not really. Not at all, actually.

Amber Sweet thinks about all this on her way to Pavi's room. She hadn't gone to ask him for advice in... years, she thinks. Like Amber, his "room" is an entire floor. The elevator opens into a long corridor. The hall is steely gray all over. The doorways on each side of the room are blocked by perfectly smooth, sliding doors of dark glass. Beyond them, she can see the suggestions of the rooms. Between the doorways, huge canvases hung on the otherwise un-punctuated walls.

The canvas are big, abstract pieces, bright primary colors and stark geometrical shapes. At the end of the corridor is a sculpture of wire and twine, strung with pieces of colored glass. For a moment, Amber thinks she can see the shape of a human figure in it's abstract form, but the next moment she loses it.

A gentern emerges from one of the room, with even more exposed skin than usual. "Miss Largo, what a pleasant surprise," she says to Amber, but her expression says something else entirely.

"It's Sweet, actually. I'm looking for Paviche."

"Right this way," the gentern says. She holds her fingertips up to the door and it slides open with a barely audible rush of air. _Whoosh_. The gentern disappears inside, and Amber follows her.

Inside, Pavi is seated in the center of a circular bed. The black satin comforter ripples out, away from him, giving the impression of a disturbance in a dark pond. Her brother's foot is propped up against a black pillows with black patterns, with similar pillows scattered around him. A girl with dark lipstick and glossy black hair is painting Pavi's toenails, black. There is no other furniture, aside from a chandelier, and eight white pillars around the walls. The room is hexagonal.

Paviche looks up as she enters and smiles, she thinks. His expressions are difficult to read because his transplanted face doesn't have all the mobility of the real thing. He's wearing a black woman's face today, with the lips and eyelashes painted up white. Amber finds it unnerving.

"Why is your face like that?"

"Because I always wear-a woman's faces, of course," he replies off-handedly, gesturing for her the girl to leave. She flutters her dark eyelashes and blows him a kiss, which he "catches" in the palm of his hand, causing the girl to giggle and flounce out the door. Amber rolls her eyes.

"Don't be a wise-ass. You know what I mean. Why is it so creepy?" she asks again. She throws herself onto the bed and rolls over, so she's lying on her back.

"Please be-a careful, bella. My nails are still not-a dry. As for-a the Pavi's face, well... it is no creepier than your own face is-a lately, my dear."

He has a point. Amber stares at the ceiling and doesn't say anything for awhile. Paviche doesn't rush her, and out of the corner of her eye, Amber sees him blowing on his toenails to dry them faster.

Finally, she asks, "What do you think makes a great artist?"

"I think-a that you are a great artist," he replies, without hesitation.

Amber shakes her head. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean... I don't know. How do good artists get inspired?"

"You would-a know that better than the Pavi, I imagine. But I think... that it was-a common for the old masters to suffer, si? To create great art, one must know-a great pain."

Amber mulls this over. Pavi reclines so he is lying on the bed directly behind her. His hair falls over her hair, and his scalp ghosts against hers, but she can't see him at all. This occurs to her and some Statement, some divine inspiration, bubbles up in her mind. Before she can analyze this thought, it vanishes like a fish in a murky pond.

"I've never suffered," Amber admits.

"Maybe you do not-a suffer," her brother suggests. "Maybe you just see-a some suffering? Starving people, or people without-a homes."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

As Amber sits up, her hair untangles from Pavi's and falls over her shoulders and back. Her tight gray t-shirt had been climbing up, and she tugs it down snug over her breasts and stomach. It clings to her in all the right places.

"You are-a growing up so fast, little Carma," Pavi says. Amber turns around and sees that he's sitting up again, studying her from behind the protective cover of his false face.

"My name is Amber now, so don't call me that."

Paviche doesn't reply. The gentern who escorted Amber inside now sees her to the door. She doesn't say goodbye, and she barely notices the elevator ride back to her room, or anything around her at all. Her head is full of misery, addiction, depression, and all the other shortcomings of the human spirit. She decides, lying sleeplessly in her own bed, that she needs to witness more suffering before she can even begin to describe it through art. Maybe even experience a little (but not too much, God forbid).

Amber's mind hums as she drifts off to sleep, creating schemes to capture, package and sell the human condition.


	5. Chapter 5

Amber Sweet wakes up early the next morning. She dresses quickly in a simple red dress and heels, applies only enough makeup to be presentable, and quickly runs a comb through her hair. She's ready in less than an hour and sneaks out, completely alone.

Amber has never been allowed to go into the city by herself. Because of her father's position as the wealthy head of Geneco, she is too likely to be recognized and kidnapped for ransom. Whenever she wants to go out, she is escorted by bodyguards with big guns and dark glasses, and a small army of personal assistants. She has everything she wants as soon as she wants it. Because such an entourage is not conductive to an mindset of suffering, she has to get away without anyone noticing.

Luckily the halls are mostly deserted in the early morning, and she makes it outside without incident. It's colder than she expected, and her exposed limbs break into gooseflesh. She clutches her purse her chest and shivers. It's too late to go back now. Besides, isn't this the point?

She wanders aimlessly for awhile. Between the bad air and the early hour, the streets are deserted. Amber can imagine that the world she had depicted in her first painting, that world devoid of human life, has come to pass. She imagines that the entire world is vacant and she is the last woman alive, all alone in this great, dead city.

Her thoughts are interrupted as she realized that she's come to a dead end.

She thought she was walking down a street but, distracted, she must have turned into an alleyway. Her path is blocked by a chain link fence. Beyond the fence, in the distance, she sees another street. Amber stands there for a few minutes, studying the alleyway. This is where the trodden of society spend most of their days. Where the golden misery occurs. Every so often a car briefly passes the alley's mouth, casting shadows on the brick. Amber makes up her mind to hop the fence. If zydrate dealers and transients can do it every day, there's no reason why she can't.

As it turns out, she's wrong.

She scrapes her wrist on the jagged points of the fence. She gets a grip on them but she sharp metal cuts into her palms, and she doesn't have the upper body strength to haul herself up. Her heels are all wrong for climbing. One of them gets stuck, and Amber yanks her foot out of her shoe to free herself. The offensive heel is dislodged from the fence and tumbles into the alley behind her.

Amber drops back down with a frustrated sigh.

"Need a boost?"

Amber gasps and spins around. A man is blocking her exit, some man with long matted hair and dark lipstick, some horrible man who probably wants to do horrible things to her. Amber Sweet snarls and backs up against the fence. The man laughs under his layers and layers of dirty clothes. As he laughs, the feathers on his jacket ripple. The bag he carries over one arm shift as he bends over and to pick up her lost heel. Amber sees all of this with adrenaline induced hyper-clarity.

"I'll scream. Don't come any closer or I'll scream," she warns him.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Here, you dropped this." The man leans forward and extends his arm, offering the heel to Amber. Her eyes dart between his face and the shoe.

"I carry mace."

"Okay, kid. Do you want this or not?"

She snatches the proffered heel from his hand and jumps back again. "I have an alarm button, too. If I press it, my bodyguards will rush here immediately.

"I believe you. I'm not here to do anything to you, it just looked like you needed a hand." He shrugs, and Amber relaxes. Slightly.

"Well I don't. If you'll get out of my way, I'll be going now."

He reaches his hand into his bag and Amber jerks away, expecting him to pull out a knife or a gun. Instead, he retrieves a piece of paper, and holds it out to her. She grabs it but doesn't take her eyes off him.

"There's a meeting today, in the Holy Family church building. You know where that is?"

Amber nods.

"Good. I'll see you there, then." He winks at her and turns abruptly, jacket swinging behind him, and departs as quickly as he appeared. Amber looks down at the wrinkled flyer in her hand. It says:

ZYDRATE ADDICTS SUPPORT MEETING. TODAY & EVERYDAY NOON.

* * *

Out of curiosity, Amber attends the meeting. She knows about zydrate and it's addictive properties from the constant interviews her father does, in which he routinely reminds people to use the drug responsibly. To not buy zydrate off the street. To get it only from licensed Geneco employees. The truth is, Amber learned from her brothers, that you can just as easily get illegal zydrate from Geneco employees: It just costs more, and you're less likely to get arrested for it.

Most of the addicts at the meeting are women, who got hooked on street zydrate after their first couple of surgeries. Some of them, they do it to take the edge off a hard day of working multiple jobs to pay their Geneco bills. Some of them do it for shits and giggles.

For some reason Amber thought that the meeting would be in a chapel, but it's really in a tiny room in an outbuilding of the church. The room is carpeted in beige, the walls are white with water damage in every corner. The smell of strong coffee permeates everything. There is a folding table, with beverages and free day-old donuts. There are folding chairs, in a circle. Amber thinks that she's never been in a more depressing room, not even Pavi's boring, Gothic bedroom.

The man from the alley shows up late. He looks straight at Amber and his black lips curl into a smile. The harsh florescent light make his eyes disappear into dark shadows. He looks like the devil himself.

He introduces himself as Cornelius, and he's addicted to zydrate. Hi Cornelius. He sits down in empty chair next to Amber, and she studies him when she thinks he's not looking. She spots a glitter of bliss blue, deep in the recesses of his leather bag before he reaches down and adjusts it, obscuring her view. Caught peeking, she blushes and looks away quickly.

She tunes out the chatter of the people around her, only listening when it's Cornelius's turn to speak. He tells everyone a story about getting busted for Zydrate abuse when he was only twelve, but being so addicted that it didn't even phase him. He was incarcerated three more times after that. He's trying to get clean now.

Amber doesn't think she can turn this place into art. She thinks, if this is art, I don't want to be an artist anymore. She suddenly becomes aware of everyone looking at her.

"Do you have anything to share?" a woman says. The leader of the group, Amber thinks. "What is your name?"

"Uh, my name is..." Amber freezes. She almost gave out her real name. She shouldn't even be here, at this stupid meeting. Her name could be all over the tabloids by this evening. Stupid, stupid Amber. Stupid zydrate addict, Amber Sweet. Luigi would fucking kill her. Scratch that, her father would kill her first.

"My name is Rachel... And I'm a zydrate addict?"

"Hi Rachel," they all echo. Everyone looks like some kind of zombie in this light. Every wrinkle, pimple, mole, and skin condition is obvious against everyone's pale, clammy looking skin. Everyone's hair looks dry and unhealthy, frizzy, thin. Bald heads are super-reflective. Extra bald. Every outfit becomes frumpy. Basically, in this light, everyone looks like shit. Maybe, Amber thinks, that's why nobody's recognized her yet.

I'm here because... daddy made me come. He can't stand my addiction. He wants a perfect daughter." Everyone nods sympathetically, relating to her lie. By believing it absolutely, they make it true, in some sense. "And this guy, some guy I hang around with sometimes... he hates it too. He calls me a scalpel slut. And a zydrate whore."

She pauses for a long time, thinking. The man next to her... Columbus, or whatever his name was, asks if she's in love with the guy. A few people shush him, but Amber just laughs.

"He's a real jerk, completely unlovable," she explains.

Her turn ends and she goes back to ignoring people's stories. In another half an hour, the meeting ends. People get up, gather their things, maybe grab a donut. Maybe grab a few donuts, and shove them in their bags. The lady in charge of the meeting sees this but turns a blind eye. Amber gets up to leave but is stopped by a tap on her shoulder.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Amber turns to the woman who stopped her and blinks. "I'm sure I have," the woman continues. "Do you go to my daughter's school? San Juan?"

"Um, no," Amber says, and quickly wishes she had said yes.

"She used to go there, but she transferred after freshman year. Maybe you met her then?" Amber jumps when a hand rests on her shoulder. She looks around and sees the the man who had spoken is the man from the alley. Columbus. No, Cornelius.

"That must be it," the woman says, nodding. Her chin tripples when she nods. There's a big, dark mole just above the hem of her blouse, and there's a long hair growing out of it.

The man smiles at her and says that they must be going, now. The woman says goodbye and doesn't seem to remember that Cornelius had asked her a question earlier, a question he would have known the answer to if they had already met. Maybe nobody else was paying attention, either. But the real question was, why did this man step in to help her, and how did he even know she needed help?

When they get out the door, Amber wrenches her shoulder away from him. "What the fuck was that?"

"I just saved you from being all over tomorrow's headlines, Miss Carmela Largo."

"My name is Amber Sweet," she says. "And, thanks. I guess. Cornelius, right?"

"That's not my real name. I made all of that up. You can just call me the Graverobber."

"That's a creepy fucking name. Why are you called that?"

"Let me answer your question with another question. Where do you think zydrate comes from?" he says, and Amber's stomach lurches.

"I'd better get home," she mutters. "Someone's probably noticed I'm missing by now. Thanks again... Graverobber."

"My pleasure. If you ever need me, for anything, I'll be around here. Noon, everyday," he smiles and she blushes, actually blushes, like a preteen schoolgirl with a crush.

"Yeah, whatever," she says. With a dramatic sweep she turns and sashays down the hallway, out the main doors and into the more-or-less sunshine. She realizes now that she's famished, and wishes she had grabbed a stale donut on her way out. But then, maybe being hungry is part of learning to suffer. So is meeting strange men with names like Graverobber. So is pretending to be a zydrate addict in some smelly little room.

Amber is so miserable, she practically skips home to create her art.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Whoot! Technically, I've finished this whole story. I just have to finish posting all the chapters now. To give you an estimate of the remaining length, the entire story is 32,000 words. : ) More than I've usually done, for sure. Hope you all enjoy reading the rest of the story as much as I enjoyed writing it~!

* * *

Amber Sweet is dying to create art, but first she has to wait for Rotti to finish his lecture. She sits patiently while he tells her about why she shouldn't go out alone, about the dangers she could run into. She sits patiently while he yells and while he speaks calmly and while he yells again. Eventually he just tells her to go, leave him. He cannot look at her right now.

She shuffles out of his office but brightens up as soon as she's outside the door. She rushes to her studio, followed by a few curious genterns. In the elevator, she tells one of the genterns to find a dog. A big white dog, with pointy ears, and bring it to her studio.

"What for?" the gentern asks, snapping her gum.

"To paint on," Amber tells her. "Nobody who's anybody paints on canvas anymore."

So the gentern stays in the elevator when Amber enters her studio. For anyone else, it might take awhile to find such a specific dog and obtain it, but not for an employee of the Largo family. Amber barely has time to set up her work space and ready her paints when, in the hallway, she hears the clicking of nails on the marble floor and a jingling of dog tags. When the gentern leads the dog into the room, Amber squeals with delight.

"Oh, he's perfect!"

"His name is Valentine. You can borrow him for as long as you want, as long as you take care of him and he isn't harmed."

"Well, now his name is Cornelius. Come here, Cornelius!" she calls and slaps her legs. The gentern unclips the leash from his collar and he bounds up to Amber, tail wagging. She can tell from his sloping back that he's a German shepherd, and from his pigmentless fur and white-blue eyes that he's albino.

It takes the an hour to calm the dog down enough to start painting. Even then, when Amber puts the paintbrush against his fur, he immediately gets up and starts running around again. They take him for a walk. They feed him. Two genterns sit beside him, stroking his ears and cooing to him. But as soon as Amber begins to paint, he gets up and runs away _again_. At last, Amber yells at the genterns to sedate him. She doesn't fucking care what they give him, just fucking do it, and do it now. They're wasting time.

A gentern comes in with a tray of some pills and a glass of water.

"What is he going to do with a fucking glass of water? He's a goddamn dog, for Christ's sake!" Amber snaps at her. The gentern rolls her eyes, and Amber thinks that if she was Luigi, that gentern would bleeding to death right now.

Someone else cleverly puts the pills in a wedge of cheese, and gives it to the dog, who eats the cheese but spits out the pills. Finally, a gentern shoves the pills down the dogs throat and holds his mouth closed until he swallows. Twenty minutes later the dog is still awake but laying quietly on his belly, eyelids at half-mast.

"Wish me luck," Amber mutters, and begins to paint.

She works quickly, unsure of when the dog will fall asleep, roll over on it's side, or try to stand up. To prevent him from falling over, a gentern sits on either side of him to catch him starts to tip. Amber stands above his back, one leg to the left of his flank and one to the right, leans over him, and paints. She forgets to tie back her hair and it spills into her palette, but she's concentrating too hard to care.

Somehow, she manages to finish the painting before the dog wakes up.

"Finished," she sighs, and tries to wipe some paint off her forehead with her palm, but only succeeds in smearing it around.

The genterns seem genuinely impressed, but then, they were probably just surprised that it even worked. For once, she doesn't feel like making a big production. She's too tired to deal with everyone's opinions and praise and applause. There's only one person she wants to show off to right now. Only one person who's opinion means shit, in this world of suck ups and brown-nosers.

"Sal?" she says to her favorite gentern. "Go and find Luigi for me."

* * *

"This had better be good. I was polishing my knife collection," Luigi says as he walks into the studio. He waves around a knife for emphasis, and Amber isn't sure if he's proving his previous whereabouts, or making a threat.

"You know how you said I shouldn't do ordinary paintings... I should do more interesting art instead?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I took your advice." A gentern comes in from another room with "Cornelius" on a lead. He still looks groggy from the sedation, but he's awake. Only his face, paws and belly are white now. The gentern leads him around the room and turns him away from Luigi and Amber, so they can view his back.

Amber tries to look at the painting the same way Luigi is, as if she is viewing it for the first time. An objective observer. The painting is a rough portrait. Two eyes stare out from the dogs back, brooding, from beneath heavy brows. High forehead. A narrow nose. The face is partially obscured by long, bony fingers, in a gesture like that of shame or embarrassment. When Amber started painting, she had intended to re-create the character of the Graverobber. By the time she finished, the portrait showed a much clearer resemblance to her brother.

Because of the living canvas, the painting has an eerie organic feeling to it. As the dog breathes, the face shifts. The shadows seem to move as if it were viewed from underwater. The painting always seems to be staring at Amber, like the false eyes on a butterfly's wings. She shivers and looks away, towards Luigi.

He's holding his hand over his mouth, an unconscious imitation of the portrait. Amber can't read his expression at all, and he just stands there for a whole minute, without saying a word.

"It's called, _a Sheep in Wolf's Clothing_. I'm going to do a whole series of paintings on living canvases, including humans." Amber finally says. "What do you think?"

"Is it dry?" He asks, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes. "Can I touch it?"

"His name is Cornelius, and sure, go ahead."

Luigi kneels before the dog and runs his fingers through his fur-- through Amber's painting. His real finger's trace his fake ones and it's really quite surreal. On contact, the dog wags his tail and tries to twist around, but a gentern holds him steady.

"This _specific_ painting is shit. You didn't put any time or effort into it, and it shows. Also, for painting on fur, you're supposed to use spray paints. Acrylic and Oil cracks and looks weird, also, it can hurt the dog," Luigi tells her, as if he's an expert.

But," he goes on. "I like the idea. There's something, like, emotional about a living piece of art. You're onto something there. It'll be a good show, if you don't get fucking lazy like you did here. This is a waste of a good canvas."

As if he knows Luigi is talking about him, Cornelius breaks free of the gentern's grip. He turns to Luigi and licks his face enthusiastically, and for a second Amber is certain that he's going to stab the dog. Instead Luigi's mouth twitches into a little smile, and he reaches up to scratch Cornelius's ears.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. About the painting. The fucking dog wouldn't sit still long enough for me to paint anything good."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out." Luigi pulls the dogs head forward and kisses him between the eyes, and Amber has to cover her mouth to keep from giggling. Her brother stands up, and he doesn't look embarrassed at all. Amber wonders it affection towards dogs is an unconscious gesture for him.

"Carol had a German Shepherd, when we were dating," he explains, brushing white hairs from his dark slacks. "She was a fucking bitch but her dog was a sweetheart."

"Was Carol your artist girlfriend?" Amber asks, genuinely curious.

"She called herself Persephone when she was being an artist, like a stage name, but yeah. Her real name is Carol." Luigi shrugs. "Well, bye. Good luck with all this shit," he says.

"Yeah, thanks." Amber watches him swagger out the door, and she smiles. He's always looked the same. Even when he was a teenager, he wore the same black pants and white dress shirt. The only difference is that he used to wear a tie, but sometime in the last couple of years he started wearing an ascot. Rotti probably said it looked good, so it Luigi wears one all the time now. Luigi had always been daddy's little boy.

Cornelius, or Valentine, tries to follow Luigi, but Sal catches him. Feeling refreshed, Amber sits down to brainstorm for her next piece of art.


	7. Chapter 7

The show is a couple weeks later, and it's the biggest thing in the news. Rotti Largo makes sure of that. Blind Mag even does a song for the televised advertisements, which immediately makes Amber's show infinitely more popular. She knows she should be grateful, but she feels resentment stir inside her at the thought that people won't come to her show for her art alone, but because Mag is promoting it.

Still, the turn-out for her show is better than she could have hoped. People mill around, looking at the art, chatting with their friends. Everyone looks like they've just come off a runway. Everyone's hair took at least an hour to perm and pin.

All the proceeds of the show are going to charity, PETA or SPCA or some shit like that. Some of the animals she painted on (with spray paints, this time) are shelter animals themselves, but most of them are specifically bought from breeders. There's a swine wearing a little black suit. A donkey painted to look like an elephant, and an elephant painted like a donkey. That one gets some of the best reviews.

There's a giant tortoise with his shell decorated to look like the globe, milling around and trying to eat people's pant legs. The continents are paper mache, and Amber's poked flags into all the countries. It's actually one of her favorite pieces in the show, and some man with a neat little mustache buys it almost immediately.

The details of the show are unimportant, and most of it is a blur to Amber. All you really need to know, is that the show was a success. The other thing you need to know, is which piece got the most attention.

Towards the back of the room, tucked away in the corner, is something you might not even notice if it weren't for all the people crowded around it. This piece is not for sale, a sign on the wall reads. The sign also reads:

_Scalpel Slut._

_(Suffrage of a Zydrate Addict)_

Sitting in the corner is a girl, probably about the same age as Amber. She's been paid a ridiculous amount of money by Rotti Largo to sit in this corner all day, pretending to be a Zydrate addict. She wears black panties, but no bra, no top of any kind. One arm is clasped around her breasts, the other lies limp beside her, palm up on the floor. Her legs are sprawled out before her like useless things. Her short, black hair is mussed, her eyes are caked with eyeliner and mascara. She looks like she hasn't showered in ages. She makes eye contact with nobody, and her mouth hangs open slightly, making her look a little like a corpse. But her chest rises and falls in shallow, irregular breaths.

A body without a soul.

Despite the sign, several people offer money for the girl, and Amber has to chuckle and say no. Most of the people are just joking, but with some of them, Amber isn't sure.

Sometime during the day she thinks she catches a glimpse of the Graverobber, looking completely out of place amongst all the rich people. He disappears into the crowd, and by the time Amber reaches the place where she thought she saw him, he's nowhere to be seen. She must have been wrong. For one thing, the bouncers would never let him in. And why would he show up, anyways?

The rest of the evening passes uneventfully.

Over the next few days, the press follows her around more than they ever had in her entire life. Outside of the Geneco building, she holds a mini-press conference for fun. They ask her, do you consider your first show a success? Does this work have anything to do with Geneco? Will you be using art to promote the company? Do you have anymore shows planned? Is Zydrate abuse an important issue to you?

For some reason, she answers _yes_ to the last question.

"Yes, it is an important issue to me. Geneco's mission has always been to ease the suffering inflicted on people by biological circumstances. Disfigurement, organ failure, we correct all of natures mistakes. Addiction is one of those mistakes. Addiction is just the body and brain's desire to obtain more and more of something, until it destroys itself completely. I don't feel that Geneco is responsible for creating the Zydrate abuse problem, but we _should_ be responsible for putting an end to it."

The press is silent for a moment, before roaring back into life with more questions, more questions than ever. In a gesture she learned from watching her brothers' press conferences, she puts up her palm to mean _no more questions_, and walks back into the building.


	8. Chapter 8

Rotti summons Amber to his office and she wonders if she's in trouble again. It's a few days before her sixteenth birthday and only a week or so after the press conference. Maybe he found out about the support group meeting, she thinks, with a lump in her throat.

"I'm very proud of your new direction, Amber," Rotti says, and it's all she can do to not breath a sigh of relief. "You're coming of age, finding yourself in the world. It's admirable. I wish your lazy brothers would follow your example."

She wants to tell him that Luigi isn't all that lazy, but she holds her tongue.

"You'll be sixteen in a few days. I thought perhaps that you'd like to have a couple valets of your own, so you don't have to search out Geneco staff every time you go out." Rotti snaps his fingers, and two men walk into the room. At first they try to go in at the same time and bump shoulders in the doorway, before deciding to go in single file. Amber giggles.

"They are yours and yours alone," Rotti tells her. "They'll take orders from nobody else, not even me. I expect you to use them responsibly."

The men are wearing black suits and black glasses, like all the bodyguards she's ever seen. They don't look like anything special, but they're _hers_, and that makes them special. "Thank you, daddy!" she says, turning back to Rotti.

He smiles and holds one of her dainty hands in his calloused, older ones. "I won't be around forever. They'll take care of you when I'm gone."

For some reason, Amber actually feels a tug at her heartstrings. "Don't say that, daddy. You'll live for a long time. The surGENs will fix anything that happens to you... you'll live longer than anyone."

"I hope you're right, my dear," he says, patting her hand. "The other thing I wanted to discuss with you, is your role in the company. I would like to get you more actively involved."

"Actively involved?" she echoes.

"Yes. I thought you might be interested in being the head of the zydrate support branch, considering your recent interest in the issue."

"Oh, daddy, really? Do you think I'm ready for something like that?" she asks, feigning humility. She knows it will be a piece of cake. Almost everything at Geneco is decided and done by personal assistants anyways, so all she has to do was be the face of the issue. All she has to do is look good, and she's been doing that her whole life anyway.

"I believe so. Do you think you're prepared to take on this responsibility?"

Amber pretends to consider it, and nods. Her father grins and leans across the table to clap her on the shoulder. "Good, good," he bellows. "I'll have my publicist go to your room in a few hours to help you work out a campaign. Or will you be in your studio?"

"I'll wait in my room," Amber tells him before she leaves. Her valets part for her as she walks past, and follow her as she exits the room. Behind her, she hears a soft _oomph _as they run into each other in the doorway again. It's like having a couple of dumb dogs, Amber thinks with a chuckle. One of them shuffles quickly ahead of Amber, possibly to protect her from any dangers they might encounter in the hallway.

On the way to her quarters she runs into Luigi, who seems to be heading towards Rotti's office. He's clutching a stack of files and as he rounds the corner, he seems completely preoccupied until he practically runs into one of Amber's valets.

"What the fuck!" he yells, almost dropping his files.

"Don't stab him! He's mine!" Amber shrieks when she sees Luigi's hand automatically reach for the knife hidden in his jacket. She steps between the valet and Luigi and shoves him, hard. She tosses her hair and sticks her lip out in an expression of petulant defiance.

Luigi's looks shocked. "I should just stab you instead, you little bitch. Your fucking meathead bodyguard just got in my way. He's useless."

"Daddy says he's my valet, and you can't kill him."

"Why the fuck not? I see you have two," Luigi says. He pulls out his knife and points it at the other valet, who starts moving forward to protect Amber. She puts am arm out to stop him. Luigi could be a real asshole but he would never cut her, and she couldn't say the same about her poor dumb valets.

"Why don't you just fuck off, Luigi? All you ever do is threaten people and you never do any work, and dad says you're lazy, and you fucking _are_."

Amber knows she's gone too far when she sees the stony expression that sets over her brother's face. "What do you think this is, huh? What the fuck does this look like?" Luigi gets up in her face, shoving the files are her. She flinches and steps back, and he tosses the files and his knife on the ground.

"Sorry," she says. Maybe Luigi thinks she's being sarcastic, because he grabs her by the shoulders and shoves her against the wall.

"You're the one who never does any work, you sleazy little whore. You just do your fucking paintings on fucking animals, as if that's so hard. You've never done a day of real work in your life."

His words cut worse than the knife would have, and Amber briefly reflects on how fast this all happened. How one day, they can have a perfectly decent conversation, and suddenly be at each other's throats the next.

And then there is a sudden, inexplicable shift of atmosphere. Even though Amber is still angry and a little scared, their close proximity suddenly dawns on her. She can tell that Luigi has the same thought because a different light comes into his eyes and he shifts uncomfortably. He's pushed her against the wall, forearm pressed against her collarbone to pin her there. They're only a hair's width away from each other. From this distance, she can feel the heat radiating from his body and she has the strange urge to press closer to him.

Instead, she sneers and tries to pull away, and the moment passes."Get off me, you big brute!" She shrieks, shoving him away from her. One of the valets has picked up the files and they're looking at each other, probably wondering if they would be canned for not rushing to Amber's rescue. Luigi snatches the files from the valet and storms off without another word.

Amber notices something on the floor and realizes that Luigi had accidentally left his knife where he threw it down. She picks it up and twirls it between her fingers. The silver blade catches light and throws it back out, casting shifting reflections on the walls.

"Be careful, Miss Sweet, you could get cu-" the valet falls silent as Amber glares at him. She decides to keep the knife. Call her sentimental.

* * *

The publicist that Rotti sends to Amber's room is a short, extremely homosexual man in a violet suit. He walks in to find Amber lounging between her valets on the couch. One of them is painting her fingernails, the other is weaving her hair into dozens of thin braids. She's telling them a story about her childhood, when Luigi shoved her off a tricycle and she scratched her knee on the ground. She still has the scar, she says, and pulls her skirt up to show them.

"Miss Amber Sweet?" The publicist asks. His voice grates on her nerves, and Amber knows this is going to be a long afternoon.

She invites the man to sit on the other couch. He introduces himself as Owen Gaultier, a publicist working for her father. She knows. They start discussing her plan of action-- the charity events she will host, the advertisements for zydrate support groups that she will paint herself, the speeches she will give. Mr. Gaultier does most of the actual planning. Amber interrupts him from time to time to make suggestions, most of which he ignores.

"Oh, and darling, you will need a new nose. Yes, a completely new nose. The current one makes you look a little, how do I put this nicely, birdlike?" He's one to talk. Mr. Gaultier's nose is positively enormous, and he looks like he could use a little eyelid reshaping, too.

"That won't be a problem," Amber says. "I'll get one of daddy's surGENs to fix it."

"Good. Now, your outfit for the big press conference simply must-" and then he said a lot of other things that Amber hardly listens to.

After the publicist leaves, Amber decides to take a nap, nestled between the warm shoulders of her new valets. She orders them to sing to her, but neither of them know how to sing, so she tells them to just hum. She thinks about about surgery, and how she should have already had some cosmetic work done by now, considering her family. She thinks about the Graverobber, and decides she'll have to visit again sometime, to learn more about zydrate addiction firsthand.

But for some reason, just as she's drifting off the sleep, she wonders if Luigi will think she's prettier with a new nose.


	9. Chapter 9

Amber Sweet shows up to the church just after the support group meeting ends. She doesn't think she can sit through another one of those. Just as he said he would be, the Graverobber is there, and he exits the buildings with the other addicts. When Amber sees him, her stomach flutters with excitement. Or apprehension, or both.

He disappears into an alleyway followed by several women from the meeting, mostly girls in their early twenties. Amber hurries to catch up to him, her valets following closely behind her. She wants to tell them to back off a little, they're smothering her, but she knows they're only concerned about her safety. In fact, it feels pretty good to have two attractive men feel so protective of her. She struts into the alley with complete self-assurance.

More women and a few men are already in the alley. It looks narrow from outside but it widens out, somehow. Everyone here sort of looks like the Graverobber, with mismatched clothes and colorful hair. Mohawks, dreads, bald heads. Amber was glad she left her bleached hair in the tiny braids from the other day. In fact, she's wearing a Rodarte dress inspired by derelict buildings, so she almost fits in entirely. Only her bodyguards set her apart from everyone else.

The Graverobber appears to be the center of attention in the crowd. But as Amber enters the alley, most of the whispering stops, and people slowly turn to look at her. Her valets tense, ready to defend her with their lives if they need to.

"You should all be ashamed of yourselves," Amber says, without much conviction. The crowd laughs. Nearby she sees a boy with a vibrant red hair slap his friend on the back. _Yeah Joe, you should be fucking ashamed,_ the boy says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I should report you all right now," Amber says.

The crowd stops laughing after that. Out of the corner of her eye she sees "Joe" flip open a switchblade. The alleyway is dead silent now and Amber wonders if she shouldn't have said that.

The silence is broken by a low chuckle. It's the Graverobber, looking right at her. He catches her eye and winks before looking around at the assembled zydrate addicts. "Just a little joke. She's with me," he says, and approaches Amber. The valets move to intercept him but Amber raises her hand to stop them, and walks up to the Graverobber.

"Thanks again," she says under her breath.

"Anything for you, miss Amber Sweet," she purrs in her ear. Chills run up and down her spine. Within a few minutes, the regular chatter resumes. Graverobber pulls Amber into a mostly-secluded corner between the brick wall and a dumpster.

"I was expecting to see you again, miss Amber Sweet. Doing fieldwork for your position as Chairwoman of the Zydrate Support Network?

"You know about that?" Amber asked. She had only made the announcement yesterday, but she should have known it would be big news already.

"Of course."

"Well... actually, I don't know why I'm here. I should be at home, getting prepped for my nosejob later today," she says.

The Graverobber raises one dark eyebrow and smiles slyly. "So you're here for a hit?"

"A hit...? Oh! No way! I can get zydrate legally from my father's surGENs," Amber says. "This will be my first surgery. I don't need your street-grade shit."

"No? Well, you will eventually."

"I highly doubt that," she sniffs, and turns to leave.

"When you do need it, you know where to find me!" the Graverobber yells as she walks away. The zydrate addicts whisper and point to her as she passes them, and Amber is struck by the feeling that she spends most of her life storming off. The valets (who's names she hasn't learned, one of her ways of psychologically dominating them) follow at her heels, like the dogs they are.


	10. Chapter 10

Her nose is-a beautiful, as Pavi would say. It still has the little downward, sloping tip, but it's not as long and sharp. She touches it. She feels a little tingle under the pressure of her fingers, which the genterns assure her would be mind-searing pain if it weren't for the zydrate buzz. Since she was going to be under the knife anyways, she also had her lips reshaped.

Amber looks perfect, in her opinion. An absolute, stunning beauty, a new face for a new step in her life. The genterns coo and hold up mirrors at different positions around her, to see herself from different angles. From the left. The right. In profile. It's flawless work from every degree.

"Take me to daddy," she says, stumbling to her feet. She can't feel her legs at all, and she giggles as her valets prop her up between them. She can tell she's moving forward but she can't feel the steps. In contrast, the feeling in her shoulders is heightened, and the valet's gentle support feels like it will rip her arms out of the sockets.

"Not so hard," she whines, but the valets just look confused as they continue guiding her to Rotti Largo's office. Amber can't wait for him to see her new face. She knows he'll love it.

Time slows as they walk down the hallway. To Amber, every ringing footstep seems to be ages apart, and she asks nobody in particular why it's taking so long. When they finally get inside the elevator, things speed up, and she's standing inside Rotti's office before she knows it. She suddenly feels silly, buzzed and standing before her father with an unfamiliar face, like some random zydrate whore pulled off the street.

"It's me, daddy. Do you like my nose?" she asks.

"It's lovely, dear. Now go get some rest, you have another press conference tomorrow and I have paperwork to do," he said with a sweeping gesture towards the piles all over his desk.

"Can't you have an assistant do that?" Amber asks.

"If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Run along now. Max, Dirk, please see Amber to her room safely."

This is the first time Amber's heard the valet's names, and she laughs at how manly they sound. They're exactly the kind of names she would have expected, if she'd thought about it at all. She laughs and laughs, until she's at the edge of hysteria, doubled over and still not stopping.

"It's the zydrate, sir," one of the valets says apologetically.

"Shut up," Amber says, but she's still laughing.

Rotti growls, "I know that. Just get her out of here. And don't let the press see this. She's obviously been over-dosed."

After that, the world fades out. When she comes around she's in the hallway, approximately two inches from Luigi's face. "We have to stop meeting like this," she says, giggling.

"...What?" he asks, perplexed. Fine wrinkles scrunch up all around his eyebrows and forehead, and Amber giggles again. She wonders, why doesn't anyone notice how goddamn _hilarious_ everything is? Luigi flicks her in the nose and she stops laughing.

"Owie," she pouts, even thought she barely feels it.

"We were just talking about your new nose. What are you on, anyways? I've never seen anyone get so fucked up on zydrate," Luigi says.

"Well, it is my first time under the knife, y'know?" She stumbles forward. Luigi catches her, and pushes her back into the arms of her valet.

"Sorry. Reflex. If I thought about it, I would have let you fall."

Amber sticks out her tongue and bats her long eyelashes. "You say that, but I bet you'd catch me again."

"Try me," Luigi says, grinning. Amber lets herself fall forward, and...

* * *

The next thing she knows, she's waking up in an unfamiliar room. Her nose throbs with pain and she resists the urge to touch it. The room is very dim, maybe because the person who put her here expected her to wake up with a migraine. (They would be right.) She wants to sit up but her muscles ache as if she's just run a triathlon. She wants to fall back asleep, but the pain in her head and nose keeps her from drifting off. Amber groans.

"Hurts like a bitch, huh?" says a figure beside the bed. She squints, and the figure comes into focus. It's Luigi, a clipboard in his lap and a pen in his hand. On the side-table beside him is a lamp with a low-watt bulb, barely enough to see by and not bright enough to aggravate her migraine.

"Yeah... what happened?"

"You blacked out. I told your manservants they could take you to my room since it's closer."

"This... this is your room?" she asks, gazing around. It isn't much to look at. There's a big, oak canopy bed, which she's laying in. Her valets had been thoughtful enough to tuck her under the comforter rather than tossing her on the bed like a ragdoll, although she obviously wouldn't have objected. An oak armoire sits pushed up against one wall, with a standing mirror beside it. The room is wallpapered with a striped pattern but she can't make out the color in this light.

Her gaze falls back on Luigi, sitting in a big plush armchair beside the bed.

"Did you catch me when I fell?" she asks.

"Ha! Of course not. One of your valets caught you just before you hit the ground, luckily for you. They're really fucking slow."

Amber stares at the ceiling for awhile. "Well, thanks for letting me sleep here, I guess. But it's pretty creepy that you're just sitting there, looking at me."

"I'm not looking at you. I'm helping pop with paperwork. See?" he says, holding up the clipboard.

"Oh."

She returns her attention to the ceiling. After a few minutes a gentern comes to bring her some pills and a glass of water. She takes them, and falls into a deep sleep.

* * *

When she wakes up again, her clock says it's ten o'clock in the morning, and she's in her own bed. The valets with names that she's already forgotten are sitting obediently in chairs by the door. Disoriented, Amber tries to recall the events of the previous day. Her nose hardly hurts anymore, so she reaches up and tentatively runs her fingers along it. Yep, beautiful new nose.

But waking up in Luigi's room, did that really happen? Everything from the time she was injected with zydrate until waking up now has a dreamlike quality, and she can't discern what's real and what isn't.

A genterns comes and asks if she wants anything. Something to drink, perhaps?

"No, I'm fine. But can you tell me... did someone carry me here? I mean, from Luigi's room?" Amber asks, feeling ridiculous.

"Yes, Dirk carried you here after you fell asleep again. You were pretty out of it yesterday. The genterns who did your surgery must have given you too much zydrate, I think."

"Oh, alright. Hey, um... you guys. Dirk, and the other guy."

"Max," says the other valet.

"Yeah. Whichever one of you caught me in the hallway, thanks. I just got this nose, I didn't wanna fuck it up yet, or anything."

The valets exchanged looks behind their sunglasses. "Neither of us caught you, miss," one of them says. "Luigi did."


	11. Chapter 11

Amber's new face is a hit with the public. She almost gets more publicity for her first surgery than for taking over the zydrate support department of Geneco. Journalists fight for the opportunity to interview her, and dozens of magazines publish human interest articles about the former Carmela Largo's ascent into adulthood. In the loving eye of the public, she is the very face of Geneco's commitment to creating a more perfect world.

But behind locked doors and tinted windows, in shadowed alleys, in her own mind, Amber is beginning a sinister transformation. Because after a few weeks, she realizes that her nose isn't so perfect after all. Noses with a slight bulbous tip are much more attractive. She tells her father this, and because she doesn't ask for much, he lets her get it fixed.

Not long afterwards, she notices that her eyes look awful, and she would look much better with less droopy eyelids. Rotti agrees to that one too, but tells her to slow down. There is no such thing as perfection, he says.

But Amber knows that there is, and if she tries hard enough, she can become perfect.

She does an efficient job of managing her department. There isn't much that she has to do, directly. Occasionally an assistant approaches to ask her to make a decision about this or that. She still holds art shows. All of the proceeds go to charities, mostly Zydrate Support Groups, and everyone calls her a new age saint. Most of the actual art is done by other, under acclaimed artists, hired for large sums of under the table cash and sworn to silence. Amber doesn't have time to create art, anymore.

She tells Rotti that she needs to get her ears fixed. The stick out too far, and they're too big. Rotti shakes his head. "You don't need new ears, the ones you have are beautiful."

"No, they're not!" Amber says, and stomps like a child throwing a tantrum.

"I don't have time to listen to you whine, Amber. Please leave me to my work."

She pesters him for awhile longer, but when it becomes obvious that he won't cave into her demands, she leaves his office in a huff. She finds a gentern in the hallway and shoves her, even though Amber knows it isn't her fault.

"I need to get my ears fixed. See?" Amber says, tossing her hair over her shoulder to expose the offensive earlobes. "Can you fix this?"

The gentern shakes her head, no. "I'm only licensed to assist in surgery," she says.

"Fucking useless."

Somehow, she manages to locate Pavi. "Who does your surgeries? Who do you get to put your faces on?" Amber barks at him as soon as she walks into the room.

"Why do-a you wish to know?" he asks.

"Rotti won't let me get surgery to reshape my ears, even though they're hideous. I can't wear my hair up until I get them worked on... so I need some genterns or surGENs who'll do it."

"You must be-a very pissed, if you're not-a calling him 'daddy'," Pavi says. "I'll tell-a you what you should do. Find-a... this girl. She and some friends of-a hers will hook you up." He scribbles something in a book, rips the paper out, and hands it to her.

On the paper is the name _Emma Jensen. _Below it is a rather impressive sketch of a naked female form. It takes Amber a few seconds to realize that the figure is wearing a visor.

"Is this the gentern I'm supposed to find?" Amber asks, pointing to the drawing.

"No, that is a different gentern. The Pavi sketches them. It make-a them feel pretty," Pavi replies, flipping through the sketchbook for her to see.

"I didn't know that you draw."

"There is much-a you don't know about the Pavi," he says with a smile. Amber thanks him for the name, and excuses herself to get nature's handiwork repaired.

* * *

"This is as much as we can safely give you, Miss Sweet," the gentern tells her. She apologizes, but Amber knows that she doesn't mean it. She's holding back.

"But it still hurts!"

"A little pressure is normal," the gentern says, and Amber smacks her across the face.

"Don't you think I've had enough surgeries to know what it's supposed to feel like, you stupid shit?" Amber sits up in the chair where she would be getting her breasts enlarged, except the zydrate isn't working. Except the idiots who work for her aren't giving her enough. The slapped gentern is clutching her cheek and staring at Amber with enormous eyes, while another bandages up the scalpel wound on Amber's chest.

This is all a long, long time after Amber's stint as a painter. Ages have passed since she had her first nose surgery. In fact, she can't remember the last time she had an "authorized" surgery.

When the bandage is secure, Amber goes to find the Graverobber. She hasn't seen him in years, but she's willing to bet that he stills works the same alleyway next to the same old church. He's just that kind of guy.

As she leaves, she hears the genterns whispering behind her._ Remember when she was younger? She used to be such a sweet girl, _one of them says. _I know!_ says the other. _I wonder what happened to her? _Amber wants to kill them both. She could hit them again, or have them fired, but the sad truth is that you can't abuse someone into liking you.

Later that day, Amber has her first hit of street grade Z. Unlike other drugs, street grade zydrate is actually more pure than the official stuff. When you get zydrate from Geneco, you're really getting a watered down version of the drug. It's been refined so many times that it's lost most of it's potency. The Graverobber tells her all this as he prepares the injection.

"But when you get Z from me," he says, tapping the vial with his finger before snapping it into the gun, "It's about as pure as it gets. Practically just a dead guy's brain, really."

Amber pulls up her skirt to give him access to the skin on her inner-thigh. "Oh, lovely."

The Graverobber laughs and squeezes the trigger. A jolt of liquid heat roils up Amber's spine, and she nearly collapses. She grabs the Graverobber's jacket for balance and wobbles against him. "Ah... that's the stuff. Here," she says, and shoves a stack of bills into his hand.

"Go buy yourself something pretty," she says, giggling.

"Why would I do that, when I have something pretty right here," he says, and runs his fingers through Amber's hair.

She frowns and pushes him away. "Don't be a goddamn creep. I'm gonna go get some big knockers now, but I'll see you again sometime."

"What if I like your knockers the way they are?

"You'll like them better when my surGENs are done with them," she says. "If you're a good boy while I'm gone, maybe I'll share."


	12. Chapter 12

Amber gets her breast augmentation. She gets a tummy tuck, followed by a face lift. She gets her nose touched up. She gets botox injections to give her the puffy lips of a sex-goddess. She replaces her brown eyes with blue-green ones, which are in fashion. A month later she has them changed back because brown is more stylish again. She gets laser hair-removal. She gets dental work. The road to perfection is a long and hard one, but Graverobber is always there with a hit of Z to ease the journey.

When she's twenty-two, Amber deputes is the modeling industry. She's always loved runway shows. She enjoys watching the elegant women with their long, skinny limbs, dressed up in outrageous outfits. A long time ago, when Amber was still called Carmela, she used to order the genterns create bizarre costumes in her tiny size. She would put on little mock fashion shows for her family and friends, strutting down the child-size catwalk, posing and making faces.

As a real model, it's pretty much the same. Only instead of a few familiar faces, she is witnessed by an ocean of strangers. Flash bulbs explode in her eyes, the music thrums all around her. The show feels like a living thing. At the end of the catwalk, she experiences a sudden paradigm shift, and everything falls into place. Everything revolves around her, Amber Sweet. The crowd hisses and seethes around her feet, like the tide, something she has never felt for herself. This is human substitution for the ocean, she thinks, and turns, and the moment is over.

Everything hangs on those moments.

Her hair and face and clothes change everyday, sometimes every hour. People frequently don't recognize her. As soon as they find out that she's Amber Sweet, daughter of the great Rotti Largo, their behavior toward her changes. Rude people become friendly. Polite. Suck-ups. Even if Amber mistreats them, they smile and take it without complaint.

Every day she is a blank canvas for another artist, and everyday she is turned into a masterpiece. Amber Sweet parades down the catwalk, turns, purses her lips, swings her hips. Somebody's perfect creation.

Sometimes Amber remembers when she used to create art too, and she feels empty.

One evening after a show, she's relaxing in her sitting room. She hasn't redecorated in over a year. She hasn't had time. Sitting on the lap of one of her valets, she listens while the other reads aloud from a book. Amber volunteered to be a guest speaker at a local book club, but hasn't read the book yet, and she doesn't want to strain her new pair of eyes.

The elevator dings, and Amber glances up with annoyance, expecting an assistant with papers to sign or choices to be made. Instead, Luigi is standing in the doorway, looking around awkwardly.

"Luigi?" she says. The name feels foreign on her tongue. She hasn't seen her brother in person for weeks, maybe, and hasn't had a conversation with him in longer. She stands up and shoos her valets off the couch. "What's wrong?" she asks, gesturing for him to sit beside her.

He hasn't changed a bit, Amber thinks. Not a fucking bit. He's wearing the same black slacks. The same white, button up white shirt with a crisp collar. The same serious eyebrows and premature wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

"Nothings wrong. I just dropped by to say hello," he lies, as he sits down beside Amber.

"You haven't dropped by to say hello in, like, three years. What's the occasion?"

Luigi avoids her gaze and takes a deep breath through his nose. Amber watches him closely, watches his nostrils flare and his jaw clench. She isn't making this easy for him.

"I know. Nobody's seen much of you, lately," Luigi says, rubbing his temples. "Shit, the press sees more of you than your own family does. Pavi is worried. He thinks you might be getting into some bad shit."

"So what if I am? It's none of his business."

"He fucking cares about you, Amber! He's your brother! Why do you always have to be such a bitch about everything?"

"_You're_ my brother too. Does that mean you care about me?" Amber asks, arms crossed.

Luigi looks away and doesn't say anything for a long time. "Never mind," Amber says, finally. "You obviously don't. Why don't you just get the fuck out of here, Luigi?" She says, and tries to keep the bitter disappointment from crawling into her voice.

"No."

"My valets will escort you out, if it comes to that."

"Amber, cut out your fucking pretentious act. I do care about you, okay? If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. Just... come down and see your family once in awhile. Pavi misses you." Amber opens her mouth, but Luigi puts his hand over it. "Alright, I miss you too. Okay? Are you fucking happy?"

"Yes," she says, and smiles.

He looks at her for a long time, and something stirs inside Amber's heart. Some half-buried memory of Luigi inspecting her artwork, telling her all the reasons why it sucked, which only made his compliments more valuable.

"God, Amber. You look like shit. What have you done to yourself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, and she really doesn't. The Graverobber thinks she's beautiful. So do the magazines. The modeling companies. Her fans.

"You look like a blow-up sex doll. Your lips are big and gross, and so are your tits. I liked your old tits better."

"You shouldn't be looking at them at all, you sick fuck," She growls.

"Say what you want, Amber, but you've sold out."

Luigi leaves Amber alone with her thoughts, alone in her room with only her psychologically neutered valets for company. Alone, and with no-one but herself to blame for it.

* * *

She waits a couple weeks before she gets her lips thinned back to normal, hoping Luigi won't think that she did it for him. She has a breast reduction. Her small, upturned nose is refiled into a downward point. It doesn't matter what she has done, as long as she continues to change for the better.

She takes a vacation but doesn't travel anywhere. It's nice to have the luxury of hanging around the house all day. Some days, she doesn't even get dressed, just walks around in her pajamas. One morning, when she wanders down to the kitchen for breakfast, she runs into Luigi. She's wearing nothing but itty-bitty pajama shorts and a stretchy gray tank top, pulled taut over her recently reduced breasts. She feels a little embarrassed and exposed.

"Hi," she says awkwardly.

"Hey," he says, hardly looking up from the magazine he's reading at the breakfast bar. Probably an issue of _Knives Monthly_ or something, knowing Luigi.

She watches him for a moment, as he flips the glossy page of his magazine. His expression, as usual, is one of concentration. He hasn't gelled up his hair yet and it sticks out at funny angles. Bed-head. Amber smiles, and as if he's reading her mind, he reaches up and smooths down his flyaway hair. He's just sitting there, in his flannel pajama bottoms and a wife-beater, and Amber thinks her brother has never been more attractive.

Amber opens the fridge and bends over, rummaging around the bottom shelf for the orange juice carton. She could have asked a gentern to fetch breakfast for her, but with nothing to do all day, it's more enjoyable to do things for herself. She finds the orange juice and stands up, taking a swig straight from the carton.

"Ahh," she sighs, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. From the corner of her eye she sees Luigi staring at her, but as soon as she meets his gaze, he glances back down at the magazine.

"What're you reading?" she asks. Her bare feet don't make a sound on the tile as she crosses the kitchen, and Luigi nearly falls off his stool when he looks up to Amber leaning over the counter. At this angle, she realizes, he can probably see straight down her top. She realizes this but doesn't move.

"BusinessWeek," Luigi mumbles, averting his eyes.

Amber walks around to the other side of the counter and peeks over his shoulder. She doesn't even see the words on the page. Her attention is really on Luigi, and the way her hip is brushing against his waist, and how easy it would be to climb on his lap, or something like that. There's an electric current between them so thick it's nearly tangible.

Without making eye contact, Luigi reaches his arm around Amber and strokes the small of her back, working his fingers under the bottom of her tank top. It's a strangely tender gesture coming from Luigi, and Amber leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder. For some reason, he smells like Cuban cigars and oranges.

"There you are, Miss Sweet!" Amber nearly jumps out of her skin. Luigi pulls away so fast that his magazine falls off the counter, landing with the cover face-up on the floor. Amber sees that it is, indeed, BusinessWeek. "I've been looking all over for you these last couple days."

The gentern bustles up to them with a clipboard in hand. Luigi slams his fist down on the counter, rattling his mug of coffee. The gentern stops in her tracks.

"Don't you ever, fuckingEVER sneak up on us like that!" Luigi yells.

I- I'm sorry, Mister Largo, I just need Amber to sign off on this..." her voice trails off. "You know what, I'll just find you later. I'm sorry to disturb you."

The gentern leaves, but the magnetism between Amber and Luigi has dissipated. He runs his hand over his stubbly chin and mumbles something under his breath.

"Why did you have to yell at her?" Amber whines. "I could have just signed the damn thing and she wouldn't have bothered us anymore."

"Yeah, whatever," Luigi growls. He sips his coffee and ignores her, for a minute, two minutes. Amber soon realizes that is she doesn't do something, this could go on all morning. What she finally does is wrap her arms around Luigi's neck and turn him around to face her. She presses her lips against his, lightly as first, before pulling him into a deep kiss. She sinks against him, nearly knocking him off his seat. His fingers ghost over her ass uncertainly. His stubble is scratchy in a pleasant way, and Amber is almost sorry when she suddenly pulls away and walks off, leaving Luigi to stew.

"Passive aggressive bitch!" he yells, but Amber just laughs.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Note: I try not to write author's notes very often because I know that people really just wanna get to the chapter. But I wanted to say thank you to my reviewers.... you make the time I spent writing this completely worth it. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. :)

* * *

Eventually Amber's vacation ends and she goes back to "work". She eases off the modeling gigs. Instead, she focuses on her art, sometimes actually creating a piece or two herself. Her art manager tells her that she's preparing for an art showing that will illustrate the ruined life of a zydrate addict from start to finish, and Amber thinks, I can do that. "No, no," her manager says, "It's all taken care of. You don't have to do a thing."

But Amber does a small painting anyways. It's her first painting on canvas since _In it's Wake, _and she's rather proud of the way it turns out. She paints it right after a breast-lift, using her own blood as the medium, and doing the entire piece while she's zoned out on zydrate. She can can't even remember what it's supposed to be. It looks like one of Pavi's beloved abstracts. But for some reason Amber loves the painting, loves it so much that when some man offers two million dollars for it, she says no. It's not for sale.

She hangs the painting on the wall above her bed.

Even though she's stopped modeling so frequently, and hangs out around the house more, Amber Sweet is still suspiciously unaccounted for much of the time. She makes up some story about learning to sing. She lies to her father and tells her that she's been attending local choir meetings and underground rock shows, learning the craft of voice manipulation in all it's forms. He couldn't be more proud of her, which makes her sick to her stomach.

As a drawback to this story, Rotti hires his own operatic singing instructor to give Amber lessons, the same instructor that tutored Blind Mag. Amber gets excellent publicity for this, but the actual lessons are a drag.

On the day before she's scheduled to preform a big musical number for a charitable event, she decides she needs her nose tweaked for the occasion. Just a little tuck, so it's not so hideously bulbous around her nostrils. First she comes to Rotti, but he turns her away.

"You think I haven't noticed all the work you've gotten done?" he asks. "Because I have. I'm done paying for cosmetic surgeries if you're just going to go behind my back and get them redone."

As usual, she's forced to go to the Graverobber for a hit, then to her private surGENs for the surgery. It's already past noon and Amber isn't sure where to find the Graverobber. She asks around in his usual alleyway but nobody else seems to know, or at least, nobody is willing to tell her.

"Hey, I got a question for you too," some guy with a thick Jamaican accent says, after telling Amber that she might try searching crypts. "Is that guy with you?"

Amber looks around, but doesn't see anyone out of the ordinary. "Who are you talking about?"

"Never mind," says the guy, glancing around as well. "He must have been lost, or something. He's gone now."

His comment gives Amber the creeps, but she goes ahead to look for the Graverobber anyway. She has her heart set on surgery this evening. Later, she'll be wishing she had just turned around and went home after that encounter, but she's truly and addict now.

All the crypts and indoor graveyards are interconnected in one enormous building. Inside the building are dozens of smaller, crumblings structures, some going deep underground. It reminds Amber of a sinister shopping mall... a shopping mall where the only thing you can buy is corpses. The interior is heavily air conditioned, and Amber shudders violently. She hopes to find the Graverobber quickly and get out of there as fast as possible. Luckily, she hears humming from one of the nearest doorways.

Only a few lanterns light the room inside, and it takes Amber's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. The walls on either side of her are slick gray marble, with doors cut into the slabs, going on as far as she can see. She's relieved when she spots the familiar figure of the Graverobber, standing on a ladder to reach one of the highest stone tombs. The door is open and the Graverobber is leaning inside, no doubt sucking unprocessed zydrate from some poor sap's brain.

He hums a tune and it echoes against the stone walls, reverberating through the vast, empty space. The echo carries his tune and they're humming in rounds, the Graverobber and his crypt. It's almost enough to make Amber care about music for real.

She doesn't say anything, afraid she'll make him fall off the ladder, so she just leans against the marble crypts and waits for him to climb down. The stone is freezing, and chills her to the bone.

"H-hey," she says when he steps onto the ground. "I n-need a hit."

"You look like you need a warm coat," the Graverobber tells her, and wriggles out of his own jacket. She takes it gratefully and slips it over her exposed arms and shoulders, wrapping it around her tightly. While she does this, Graverobber unclips a vial of Z from his belt and starts loading it into the gun.

"I don't have the money right now, though. I can pay you later."

Graverobber stops. "I don't accept I.O.U.'s, darling."

Amber Sweet pouts, sticking out her bottom lip the same way she's been doing since before her name was Amber. "Please, please, please! I'll do anything you want," she purrs into his ear, twisting her manicured nails in his shirt and pressing herself closer to him. Amber hears footsteps outside the crypt, but doesn't give them a second thought. Probably just a mourner. Nothing to worry about.

"Get the FUCK off my sister, right fucking now!"

The Graverobber and Amber both look up, startled. Luigi's voice echoes his threat back, again and again, until it finally rolls into silence. Amber doesn't move, doesn't even breath.

_Fuckshit! Oh, fuck! I should have brought my valets, she thinks._

Luigi's footsteps ring out violently on the hard floor, filling the space. Amber's thoughts come slowly, disjointed, fuzzy with terror. She catches the glitter of a knife in Luigi's sleeve and whispers a frantic warning to the Graverobber. Instead of backing away, she pulls him closer, as if she's trying to hide in his body. She looks up at his face and to her surprise, he doesn't look frightened at all. He looks cold... calculating, even.

When Luigi is only ten feet away and Amber is about to bolt, the Graverobber reaches into his bag, whips something out and points it at Luigi, all in one swift motion. It's a fucking pistol. Amber jumps away and trips, stumbling backwards over the tile floor until she smacks up against the crypts. Her heart pounds in her ears and she's weeping, although she doesn't notice at first. The only sound in the whole room is her sobs.

"Please, don't shoot him! Graverobber, please, please, don't do it... He won't tell anyone! Just don't shoot him, please, please..."

Amber sinks to her knees, begging. _Please, please, please, please. _She's not sure if the words are even coming out of her mouth anymore, or if the mantra is only in her head. This moment seems to last for hours, although it probably isn't more than a minute.

"Get out of here. Both of you," the Graverobber says. His upper lip is twisted into a sneer, and his eyes are cold as the marble tombs around them. Amber rises shakily to her feet.

"Thank you," she whispers. Her voice is hoarse and the Graverobber ignores her.

Luigi doesn't move, and Amber is afraid for a second that he's going to try to fight anyways. "Please, big brother, let's go." She moves to touch his shoulder but Luigi reaches out and grabs her arm instead, gripping it tightly enough to raise bruises on her pale skin. She doesn't struggle, just stares at him.

He spins her around and rips the jacket off her shoulders, but keeps his eyes locked on the Graverobber as he does it.

"Stay away from Amber, you filthy sleaze."

He throws the jacket on the ground and stomps on it, grinding it into the tile with the sole of his shoe. If the Graverobber feels anything about this, he doesn't show it. After what seems like an eternity, Luigi grips Amber again by arm and leads her out, out of the crypt, out of the whole fucking building. Amber doesn't look back until she's halfway home, and then there's nothing behind her to see.

"Why did you follow me?" Amber whines at Luigi. He keeps his eyes straight ahead as if he hasn't heard her.

"Are you going to tell daddy?" Still no reply, but Amber already knows the answer. Screwing up this bad means she'll be written out as a potential heir to Geneco, an opportunity her brother won't be quick to waste.

Just outside the Geneco building, Luigi stops, and says the last thing Amber is expecting. "You know I love you, right?" he says, still not making eye contact with her.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well I do. And don't fucking forget that."

And still gripping her arm, as if he's afraid Amber will try to escape, Luigi leads her inside like a guard leading a prisoner to electric chair.


	14. Chapter 14

As Amber expected, her father shits a brick. No, fuck that, he shits an entire house. He refuses to even talk to her for the first few days after he finds out. She doesn't feel guilty, or even scared really. She doesn't need the inheritance. Amber Sweet has become a name of it's own now, and it would be a step backwards to fall under Rotti Largo's shadow again, which she would definitely do if she took over Geneco.

But for some reason she's anxious, waiting for the shoe to drop. She cancels any meetings, interviews, and appearances she has for the next week, including her singing gig. She thinks about how nice it would feel to get a hit of Z right now. Too bad _that's_ completely out of the question.

"You're supposed to do anything I say," she says to her valets. "Can you get me a vial of zydrate? And a gun?"

They shake their heads simultaneously. Typical, Rotti lied about not being able to override her orders. Clearly he's told them to guard her, a prisoner in this dark tower, a princess in a fairytale. Locked away by an angry old king, to be miserable for the rest of her days. To take the edge off her anxiety, she drinks, and paints.

She doesn't have the energy to rip off clever ideas for Art, so she just does watercolors. Oils on canvas. She decides to paint patterns on an old pair of heels for no reason at all, and then realizes they're the same heels she wore when she met the Graverobber. One of them is still scuffed and ruined from falling on the pavement. She paints little white hearts on them and throws them away. She paints a portrait of herself. She does a watercolor piece of a gentern. (It's Sal, to be specific)

She paints a fairytale version of herself as the princess, of Geneco as a tower. A knight with long dreadlocks stands at the base of the tower, his helmet tucked under his arm. There's a white dog by his feet, a German shepherd.

"Hey Sal," Amber says after finishing the piece. "What happened to Cornelius? I didn't put him in the show, but when I got back he was gone. Did you take him home?"

"You mean Valentine? He died here. He kept licking the paint off his back, and it probably had a bad reaction with a sedatives in his system."

"Oh," Amber says.

She takes another drink.

She wanders aimlessly around the house for hours a day, finding rooms she doesn't remember or even know about. She finds out that Pavi owns a little Pomeranian dog, but never sees them in the same room, and wonders if Pavi even knows he has a dog. It seems it's always with one gentern or another to be walked or groomed. When she runs into Pavi or Luigi in the hallways, they avoid her gaze. She doesn't see her father at all.

In the sitting room one evening, she gets into a fight with Luigi. It gets so bad that it comes to blows; Luigi ends up smacking her hard in the face. He's wearing some kind of stupid, jagged ring and it gauges into the skin around the corner of her mouth. She clutches her face, blood dripping between her fingers, and starts to cry. Luigi doesn't even apologize.

"Goddammit, Amber! Stop being such a melodramatic little princess!"

If Luigi had done this to her when she was a child, daddy would have made him apologize. But now Amber's daddy hates her. He hates both of them. Luigi leaves and a gentern rushes in to repair the damage. A few quick stitches and the genterns leave her too, curled up and crying on the couch, cheek still stinging.

The couch cushion shifts as someone sits down, and Amber looks up through dark, puffy eyes. Mascara residue stains the knees of her dress where she's been crying. Her long, black hair falls in her face, and she's never looked this fucked up before except on purpose. Pavi is openly staring at her.

"What happened to-a your face, little bella?" he asks, reaching out to trace the stitches with his long fingertips.

"I'm sure you can guess," Amber sniffles.

"Luigi?"

Amber nods, and Pavi sighs, stroking her cheek. "Remember when you-a were just a child, and when Luigi teased-a you, you always came to the Pavi?"

"Actually, you always found me."

"And you would-a call the Pavi your guardian angel."

"Yeah, I remember. You've done a pretty shitty job of that," she says with a weak laugh.

She sighs, that shuddery sigh that you only make after you've been crying hard, and swings her legs off the edge of the couch. Paviche scoots closer, and she folds into his arms. It's the first hug they've shared since before that day when Carmela was nine, and realized she'd been replaced in Pavi's heart.

"The Pavi is-a sorry. You know, The Pavi will always be-a your guardian angel," he says, running his fingers through the long hair that isn't even Amber's real hair, anymore. Before he leaves, Pavi lightly kisses the wicked, curving gash on Amber's cheek, and she thinks she's never felt more loved.


	15. Chapter 15

It's almost a week after the incident in the Crypt when her father finally summons her to his office. She sits in the chair on the other side of his desk, playing with a pencil and biting her lip. He doesn't speak for a long time. Amber's valets stand on either side of her, arms crossed obediently behind their backs, waiting for her next instruction. They're positioned squarely across from Rotti's henchwomen, all of them unreadable behind their dark glasses. It looks like a face-off.

"I am deeply disappointed in you. It's taken me quite some time to work out what to do."

"I know, daddy."

Rotti slams his hand down on the desk, making her jump. She sees, for a moment, where Luigi inherited his temper from. "You don't know! I give you everything you ask for, let you do whatever you want, and this is how you repay me?"

Amber stares at the desk.

"Don't you realize, if someone leaks to the press that you're..." Rotti trails off. When Amber looks up to see her father with his hand over his mouth, looking sick and lost. He suddenly looks every old.

"...That you're engaging in certain activities, it could ruin the Largo name."

"But my name isn't Largo anymore," Amber says under her breath, so quietly the Rotti doesn't hear it. He continues lecturing her, until she does feel guilty, until she feels cornered and worthless. After an hour of verbal berating, he finally gets down to the plan of action.

"You'll still be the head of the Zydrate Support Network, ironic as that is. If I pull you off the job now, people will wonder why. But! You will not create art anymore. Artists always become junkies, and I never should have let you go down that path. That was my mistake. You will focus on your singing from now on. If you study hard enough, I'll let you perform in this year's genetic opera."

Amber blinks. "But... why, daddy?"

"Opera will be good for you. To be a talented singer, you learn to exert complete control over your lungs and your diaphragm. You learn discipline. The ability to harness all the power in your body and project yourself, to assert yourself. These are life-lessons as well as lessons in singing," Rotti explains.

"Oh."

Rotti dismisses her, and she gets up to leave. Just as Amber steps into the elevator, he calls out.

"Don't think I've forgiven you, Amber. Until you earn back my trust, I'm ashamed to call you my daughter."

Before she can reply, the elevator doors slide shut.

* * *

"So you can't paint anymore?" Luigi asks.

It's the day after Rotti's discussion with Amber, and she and Luigi are laying on her bed. It's hard to remember how they got here, especially with the throbbing wound still fresh on Amber's cheek. She'll probably need a skin graft. But for now she and Luigi are hanging out, passing a flask of something back and forth, as it they're best friends. The two siblings are alone except for Amber's valets by the door, and they hardly count. Luigi has a hangover from from some disastrous social event the previous evening, so the lights are dim. Amber asked if he should be drinking... whatever is in this flask, if he has a hangover, but according to Luigi the best cure for too much to alcohol is more alcohol.

"Yep. But it's a small price to pay, really," she says, and takes a swig from the flask.

Luigi grunts and swipes it out of her hand. "If you think that, you're even further gone than I thought."

Amber doesn't bother to analyze that comment. Instead she rolls over on her side and studies Luigi's profile. He doesn't look like he's ever had any surgery on his face, nothing at all. Not even a Rhytidectomy to smooth out his premature wrinkles. He's had wrinkles since his mid-twenties, from stress, she's sure. He still had the same sharp, uneven nose. She's struck by the urge to run her fingers over his face, to feel the and imperfections for herself, but she holds back.

"Why don't you get any cosmetic surgeries?" She asks him.

"Because I don't wanna look like you." Amber pouts and shoves him, but he's joking and she knows it. He rolls on his side to face her. "Actually, it's because I want to be recognizable. When people see me on TV, I want them to think... 'That's Rotti Largo's kid, Luigi. That's a face you can trust.'"

He isn't joking, but Amber laughs anyways. "Fat chance. How do you expect anyone to trust you when you're always killing people?"

"People are stupid. They're trust me no matter what I do. After all, someday I'll be running Geneco."

"What makes you so sure Pavi won't get Geneco?"

That's not a joke either, but Luigi seems to think it's hilarious. "That clown? He'll be lucky if pop leaves him a dime."

Amber feels bad for her brothers, because neither of them seems to understand how badly Rotti thinks of them. Her expression must be reflecting her thoughts, because Luigi stops smiling. "What're you thinking about?" he asks.

She lies and says, "Just what dad said. About being ashamed of me."

"Don't worry about that, Carma. You've always been daddy's little girl. He doesn't mean what he said," Luigi replies. He doesn't seem to realize that he just called Amber by her old nickname.

Before she can overthink it, Amber scoots closer to Luigi and kisses him. Their noses bump, and she feels like a teenager again, as if this is her first kiss. After a moment of surprise, Luigi kisses back, driving her down against the bed. He tangles one of his hands in her hair around the back of her head, the other goes to her waist. The moment seems to both last forever, and fly by in an instant.

"What the fuck are we doing?" Luigi says when they finally break the kiss.

"I don't know," Amber says. "Maybe we shouldn't." And just like that, they've over-analyzed it. They withdraw from each other, hugging their own arms against the feeling of sudden loss. Luigi sits up and hangs his legs over the side of the bed. When he leans forward, his shirt is pulled taut over his back, and Amber can see the outline of his body through the thin fabric. She thinks she sees a scar, just below his left shoulder blade, but it's so faint she might be imagining it.

"So... that guy. The guy from the crypt." Luigi says, probably to break the silence.

"What about him?" Amber prompts.

Another pause. "Are you in love with him?"

It's not a joke, and nothing about it is funny, but Amber laughs anyways. "He was my dealer," she says, as if that answers anything.

"That wasn't my goddamn question. I asked if you love him." He sounds pissed, which makes Amber pissed. He has no right to ask questions like that, no right to even give a shit.

"Fuck, Luigi. I don't know. Maybe a little. Don't kill him, alright? If you care about me, you'll just leave him alone."

Luigi turns away and doesn't say anything for awhile.

"Only a slut like you would fall in love with a grave robber," he says, and leaves her alone on the bed. This pretty much sums up Luigi and Amber's relationship; one of them is always leaving the other alone. Amber can't remember the last time they parted on good terms. She sits up, running her fingers through her hair to comb get the knots out of it.

When Luigi is gone, one of the valets clears his throat. "May I offer you some advice, miss?"

Amber jumps. Her valets almost never speak, much less offer her advice. At first they had tried, but Amber quickly taught them that she preferred her servants to be seen and not heard. She taught them that their input was unwanted, and most likely wrong. For one of them to speak up now is so incredibly rare that it makes Amber curious.

"Sure. What is it?"

After a brief hesitation (but no change of expression) he says, "I think it would be wise to stay away from Luigi."

"And why is that?" Amber asks. She tries to stay calm, so the valet won't lose his nerve.

"He killed all his previous lovers, didn't he?"

Amber has to admit, this is true. "But I'm his sister, so it's different."

The valet doesn't reply, and Amber gets the impression that he still doesn't agree, he just wants to avoid an argument. She doesn't push the issue because she doesn't know if it's an argument she can win. Luigi has been known to kill people he cares about over small annoyances. He stabbed his first girlfriend after they had been dating for six months, just because she bought him chocolates with nuts for their anniversary and forgot that he was allergic. His next girlfriend, also stabbed, because she was rude to Carmela. (Apparently Luigi is the only one allowed to be cruel to his little sister)

And,of course, there was Carol. His artist girlfriend who cheated on him for the dog-man. She was more deserving of her fate than Luigi's other unfortunate victims, but it was still disgusting. Her brother couldn't be trusted to love anything without destroying it.

And there it was-- The valet was right. Amber could never risk getting close to Luigi.


	16. Chapter 16

Years slide into years. Amber changes every day, but never changes inside. Sometime after the zydrate incident, Rotti orders her art studio to be destroyed. All her art supplies, all her canvases and sculptures, they're all burned. The studio is cleaned out so thoroughly that it just looks like another empty office, as if a young girl named Carmela Largo had never poured out her soul in that room. It doesn't matter what you create. If everything an artist makes is a self-portrait, then only the act of creation is important.

The only piece of art left is the small canvas above Amber's bed, painted in her own blood.

Amber doesn't give a shit about her music lessons. She drives her tutor mad by getting things wrong all the time, ignoring his instructions, not showing up for practice. It's just a game, a game to see when he'll give up on her. All Amber knows is, it hasn't happened yet. She's done a musical number for every Genetic Opera since she was twenty-three. She's been upstaged by Blind Mag every time.

No matter how hard Amber practices (which is never very hard, honestly) Mag is better. If Amber Sweet is a saint in the public eye, Blind Mag is a fucking angel.

She doesn't care about singing well, but she does care about singing better than Blind Mag. Every year her musical numbers become more elaborate. More props for the background, more special effects, more background singers. A more beautiful dress. A more elaborate hairdo. Every year she tries harder, and every year she fails.

Magazines publish articles about how she should go back to painting. _Amber Sweet has no natural talent for music. _The tabloids say. The say,_ Without synthesizing, Miss Sweet's voice is too high and raspy. Furthermore, it's obvious to her long time fans that she doesn't enjoy singing as much as she enjoys art, and it shows. She should go back to the work she's loved for so long. Mr. Sweet pours her heart and soul into her paintings, with a passion that shines through her work and touches the lives of those who see it._

Bullshit, Amber thinks, crumpling up the articles. The fans don't know anything. Amber didn't even create ninety percent of the work she supposedly "poured her heart and soul into", and her idiot fans couldn't tell. She doesn't miss painting at all.

About a year and a half after Luigi catches Amber in the crypts, when the heat's off, she goes back. Back to the exact same crypt where the Graverobber threatened her brother at gunpoint. Where she left the love of her life, Amber thinks, as her heels tap rhythmically on the tile floor. She runs her fingertips along the marble as she walks, eyes closed, just feeling the shock of cold and the thin ridges cut into the stone. Somehow Amber knows the Graverobber will be here, today, as certainly as Pavi used to find her when she was in trouble.

She doesn't even open her eyes or turn around when she hears him enter the room. The soft thump of his boots, the swish of his jacket. Probably the same jacket Luigi threw on the ground, probably hasn't even been washed. Even though she hasn't heard these sounds in a long time, they're as fresh in her mind as if she'd seen him just yesterday.

"Who's there?" the Graverobber calls to her.

Only then does Amber turn to look over her shoulder, head still bowed, hair falling into her face. Her hair is red now, short with bangs. Her eyes are green. Her thin lips curve like a Cupid's bow as she smiles coyly at her dealer, her lover. All the surgeries, legal. Done with her father's permission. But surgery is so much less fun without the Graverobber, it's hardly even worth it.

"I need a hit," she says.

"Amber? Is that you?" he asks.

"Yep. Hurry up, my surGENs are waiting," she says, as if she'd never been away. The truth is, she doesn't have surGENs waiting and she probably won't even get cut afterwards, but that's beside the point.

"If your crazy brother followed you again, I swear I'll shoot you both," the Graverobber warns.

Amber waves her hand dismissively. "Don't worry. My valets are outside, just in case."

"Why come back to me?" the Graverobber asks, resting a hand on Amber's hip. "There are plenty of other dealers in this city. Why not go to one of them?"

"Shut the fuck up, Graverobber. Do you want my money or not?"

In the dim light of the lanterns, Amber studies his face for any sign that he's missed her, and comes up with nothing. He stares back at her with the same cold, penetrating stare as always. His same black lips, pursed as he examines her. His same dark eyebrows. He's all there, all the same man she'd left behind. Seeing him again, in the flesh, Amber wonders why she ever loved him. Wonders if she loved him at all, or if she just loved the service he provides. Loved being under the knife. The Graverobber has charisma, but charisma is just a magic trick, a promise that can't be fulfilled. Amber knows all about charisma because she's a celebrity. The curse of those who wear masks is being able to see through the masks of everyone else. Pavi told her that, once.

Amber thinks of all the evenings she's spent, lying in bed, running this scene through in her head... over and over... and feels a little sick. What a huge waste of time.

"Sure, whatever," he growls. "Where do you want it?"

For once, Amber doesn't bother to haggle by substituting services for regular payment. She just offers him her inner arm, and when he injects her, she feels nothing. It's like standing at the edge of an abyss, this huge nothing inside her. It's such a goddamn improvement. Amber remembers why she got into street-grade zydrate in the first place.

"Will I see you again?" the Graverobber asks, taking the cash from her pocket without waiting for her to hand it over.

"Definitely."


	17. Chapter 17

Amber Sweet uses her body like a tool. Like a surGEn uses a scalpel, like an artist uses a brush. Women have been using their bodies to get what they want since the dawn of time, but Amber's generation has perfected the art. The body becomes a finely tuned instrument, to be altered for any occasion. Amber picks out her eye color like women a century ago would pick out earrings.

For the public, Amber is like a fan-tipped brush, coloring Geneco with her broad personality. Her fans see her as quirky, sexy, charitable, and creative. Her critics see her as spoiled, attention craving, and shallow. They're all right. They're all just parts of one painting, one masterpiece called_ Amber Sweet_.

For her suitors, Amber is an angle-tipped brush. Just when a man thinks he's got her figured out, she does something to show that they only know one tiny part of Amber Sweet. It's like the story about the three blind men describing an elephant. Amber never stays with one man for very long, because Amber Sweet is addicted to change, and even more addicted to perfection. After the initial rush, when it becomes obvious that the guy isn't as amazing as he seemed, she sees no reason to keep him around. She can always have someone better.

For the Graverobber, she is a sable, rigger tipped brush. Slim, soft, and straight to the point. Such a tiny brush, it can only used for something so specific as getting exactly what she wants. For her valets and genterns, she's a flat brush. Because she doesn't respect them, or fear them, or need to manipulate them, they shows them exactly who she is. Sometimes Amber thinks that the hired help are the only people who really know her.

For Luigi, she's something new every day.

It's hard to put a finger on where Amber and Luigi's "relationship" starts. Like most things, it happens over a span of many moments. An accidental brushing of shoulders in the hallway, a few too-long stares. Luigi's fingers on her thigh. Amber's lips against his.

They orbit around each other, never drifting too far away, but never getting close enough to collide. Sometimes he pushes her against the wall, he pulls her into a hungry kiss. Push and pull. Opposing forces, an orbit. They make out in in coat closets or locked bathrooms. But always, before they get _too_ close, Amber pulls away. She leaves Luigi, confused and alone.

But this isn't any kind of love, Amber thinks. They fight _constantly_.

Amber calls Luigi a loser, says Rotti would sooner leave the company to Pavi's dog than to him. Luigi calls Amber a fucking whore, a scalpel slut, a cold bitch.

They have huge, bellowing arguments, up and down the halls. Luigi chases her, slips on the tile, smacks his head. The genterns stitch up his scalp and he's fine. No problem. He tracks Amber down in the formal dining room, pins her to the wall and punches her in the face before she can wriggle away. The hairline fracture in her jaw is fixed up with minimal fuss, and they close the wound with super glue. Genterns know, the best way to treat a laceration so it doesn't show during a press conference, is super glue and a dab of foundation to hide it.

Luigi and Amber are making out in an elevator one day. It could be any day; it happens often enough. When the elevator reaches it's destination on the ground floor, the doors slide open, and Amber moves to leave. But to her surprise, Luigi grabs her arm and presses the "close door" button.

"Hey, Wait!" says some surGEN outside the elevator, but the doors close in his face. Luigi presses the button for the top floor and turns to face Amber.

"We need to talk about this," he says, his eyes solemn with his serious demeanor. Nobody can look serious like Luigi Largo.

Amber looks away. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Every time we start fooling around, you just walk out! You're a cock-tease, you know that? A fucking cock-tease."

"Fuck you, Luigi. Stop blaming me because you can't get laid!"

"Stop trying to turn this into another fight. You're not getting off that easily."

She glares into his eyes for a long time. The elevator reaches the top floor and dings, the door opens. Before Amber can leave Luigi presses the button to close the door, and they're summoned again to the ground floor. "Come on, Amber. What's wrong with you? I don't think you find me unattractive, so what is it?" Luigi grabs her by the upper-arms and shakes her.

Amber says nothing, just glares at him. Glares until she thinks her eyes might burn holes in his head, blinding him. But nothing happens. Nothing happens for a long time. Luigi pushes her away with a snarl. "I don't understand you anymore."

"You never understood me."

When the doors slide open, the same man is still waiting here.

"Sorry, it's full," Luigi says, and presses the button to close the doors again.

"B-but, I'm already la-" the man is cut off when the elevator shuts and Luigi presses the button for Amber's floor.

Amber ignores her brother, back pressed against the railing that runs along the inside of the elevator. She knows he's looking at her, she can see him in her peripheral vision. He grabs her by the arms again, roughly as usual, and kisses her. "Let's talk about this," Luigi murmurs against her lips. And she really wants to, but something stops her.

Part of her is afraid that just by mentioning Luigi's temper, she'll get knifed. Anything can get you knifed by Luigi. Amber knows she should just stay away, as far away as she can. The cliché, 'If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.' comes to mind. Also, 'If you play with fire, you'll get burned.'

"Fucking asshole. Why don't you stop trying to bang your own sister and get a real girlfriend?" When the words reach her ears, she wonders if they really came out of her mouth.

The elevator slides open and Amber storms out. Luigi lets her go this time.


	18. Chapter 18

The king's reign is coming to an end. Rotti Largo is terminally ill, a fact which does not and cannot leave the Geneco building before the Genetic Opera. Luigi and Amber stop fighting because Luigi has focused his attention on fighting with Pavi instead, and on sucking up to his father. Under stress, his uncontrollable temper reaches a peak. Nobody approaches him, if they can help it. Genterns suddenly become extremely competent in his presence.

Pavi doesn't change much. His enormous ego assures him that Geneco will fall right into his lap, the same way his genterns do.

The rivalry between them escalates every day. In one strange incidence, Luigi hired an assassin to kill Pavi, and Pavi did likewise to eliminate Luigi, on the same night. The two assassins ran into each other in the hallway and each attempted to snuff the witness, as they would do with any bystander that had the bad luck to spot them. The ensuing fight resulted in the two bodies of the trained killers, dead in a heap by the elevator. Everyone got a good laugh, but it was a close call. Amber could have easily woken up that morning to find she had one less brother.

She doesn't bother with the power struggle. Amber wonders if she should care more about Rotti's death, being his daughter and all, but didn't he kind of disown her? She doesn't know if she'll miss him, or if Geneco will fall into ruin when he's gone. She wouldn't know what to do with the company if she got it. As long as that old bastard leaves her some money, she thinks, she'll have no hard feelings when he kicks the bucket.

Amber visits the Graverobber almost everyday now. She becomes an expert at tracking him down. Even when she isn't getting surgery, she has a hit of Z, to get her through the day. It helps with television interviews, the photo shoots, the charitable events. With the nosy press questions. With her singing lessons.

Blind Mag makes the announcement that she's leaving Geneco.

"Where will you go when you leave? What will you do?" Rotti asks.

"Anywhere," Mag replies. "Anything." Amber Sweet envies her for a second, before she realizes that Mag actually won't be doing anything after she leaves. Mag has a contract with Geneco and if she tries to go, a repoman will rip out her eyes and leave her to bleed to death, under Rotti's orders. That's just how Rotti is. That's how the whole Largo family is, including Amber.

Like the genterns said, she wasn't always like this.

Amber takes her painting off the wall above her bed, and tucks it into a drawer in one of her closets. She doesn't like to be reminded of who she used to be. It distracts from the present.

_When you run Geneco, what changes will you make? Will you stop repossessions? Asks a reporter. It's funny because he doesn't know how close Geneco is to changing hands, but Amber puts on a pokerface and pretends that she doesn't know, either. The zydrate helps. So does the botox. Her face doesn't have the same kind of mobility it used to._

Amber laughs and tells the reporter that she probably won't inherit the company. Rotti will leave Geneco to one the her brothers, so they can make the difficult decisions. Amber says, she already has her musical career. That isn't a joke and most of the reporters try not to laugh. The best part of being Rotti Largo's daughter is that Amber rarely gets bad press. No reporter wants to risk having an organ failure and being rejected for transplant financing, or worse, have the same thing happen to a family member. Everyone in the journalism business has heard horror stories about crossing Geneco.

Amber is chosen to receive some humanitarian award, for her hard work as the head of the zydrate support network and for her charity concerts. Clearly whoever picks the recipients of the award hasn't been doing their homework. Lately, Amber's missed most of her appointments, and cancels shows routinely. Seducing the Graverobber and having surgery takes up most of her time.

_She's allowed to pick someone to do an introductory speech about her. Someone who knows you well, they tell Amber, and more importantly, someone with charisma. Your father, perhaps?_

Rotti says he doesn't have time, no surprise there. Ten years ago he would have dropped everything to do the speech, but that was ten years ago, and a lot has changed. The next person Amber asks is Pavi, who says he doesn't like to speak in front of large audiences. "It is-a too embarrassing, it make-a the Pavi blush," he says, even though he can't blush anymore, not with somebody else's face. Everyone in Amber's family is fucked.

When Amber doesn't have any other choice, she goes to Luigi. He's surprisingly willing, Amber thinks. She must have caught him on a good day. Maybe he just raped a corpse, or whatever the fuck Luigi does for fun.

"Sure, Amby. I'll have a gentern help with the speech later."

Amber laughs at the nickname and points him towards Sal, the gentern who probably knows the most about her. She's had been working at Geneco since Amber was a toddler. Luigi takes down the name and thanks her.

"Actually, thank you," Amber says, and it's the most pleasant conversations they've had in awhile. Amber spends the next few days in an excellent mood. She barely gets fucked up on Z at all, instead she stays around the house, picking out her outfit and makeup for the award ceremony. She works on her own speech. She invites all her family and "friends" to the ceremony. Her friends are actually acquaintances she acts familiar with in public. Amber Sweet doesn't have time to make real friends.

"Wait, wait, don't come in, I'll come out," she says through the door to her personal genterns. "Just tell me if this makes a good impression."

Amber Sweet pushes open the door and slinks out, wearing her most humble little smile. Her auburn hair spills loose over her bare shoulders and back, stopping just above her breasts, with just the right amount of wave. Her eyes, smiling out from under her characteristically heavy eyeshadow, shine cadmium green. She chose them to match her strapless dress. The part of the dress that hugs her curves is one solid piece, but where the body of the dress becomes the skirt, it becomes layered. Soft, sheer fabric in different shades of green spiral out diagonally around her legs. Amber fell in love with the dress for it's organic appeal.

The genterns eat it up, but Amber can never trust their opinions. She could be wearing a cardboard box and have her face painted like a tiger, and her genterns would say it was beautiful. Amber decides she needs a second opinion.

* * *

"Hey, Luigi!" She calls, jogging to catch up with him, which proves to be difficult in heels. Her valets hold up the skirt of her dress so it doesn't drag on the ground. "What do you think of my outfit for the award ceremony?"

He turns around, eyebrows raised.

"...oh."

"Is that a good oh, or a bad oh?" Amber asks, hands on her hips.

"It's a good oh..." Luigi runs his fingers down her side, absentmindedly. He's pretty much staring straight down her dress, but Amber decides to be flattered rather than angry.

"You look so old," he says.

"I could say the same of you," Amber growls, jerking away from his hand.

"I mean grown up, not old-old. Jesus, you're only twenty-five."

"Twenty-seven, actually. I'm ten years younger than you. Why can't you remember that?"

"Stop being such a bitch. Anyways, your dress looks nice," Luigi says and continues going to wherever he was going.

"You mean my tits look nice," Amber says to his receding back.

"Oh yeah, that's what I meant."


	19. Chapter 19

Amber actually shows up to the award ceremony, to the surprise of the press. All the other people chosen to receive an award look like they can't bring themselves to give a shit. Amber wishes she was one of those people, but this is her first award, and she's actually a little excited. Before the award ceremony she walks around, making the regular, boring smalltalk. Introductions. Fake smiles for fake friends.

Somehow she finds Pavi in the crowd, a girl on each arm. "Where's daddy?" she asks. Rotti said he would attend, even though he didn't have time to write or rehearse a speech for her.

"He said he would-a be here in time for your acceptance," Pavi replies with a shrug.

Amber should have expected as much. She looks for Luigi, but can't find him either. _He'd better be here,_ she thinks. Soon everyone is asked to take a seat, and the ceremony begins. Amber watches inattentively as several others step up to receive their awards. She recognizes all the names and faces but doesn't know anyone personally. Smile, clap.

The event's host is Yohji Feu, a man that Amber is actually familiar with. Yohji and Rotti had been friends ever since Amber was young enough to think his name was, "Oh, gee" and pronounce it as such. Since then, the two had a falling out, mostly over arguments about the ethics of organ repossessions. Yohji is against them, saying that Geneco could afford a few people being late with their payments. Rotti argues that if people were allowed to miss payments without consequence, eventually, nobody would pay for their transplants.

It's a cynical view of human nature, but Amber tends to agree with it. People will do anything they think they can get away with. Still,Yohji had always been the angel on Rotti's shoulder, and Rotti is the kind of man who needs an angel.

Finally, it's Amber's turn.

"Now, it's my pleasure to present the UniMed humanitarian award to Miss Amber Sweet. As a personal friend of Amber's father, Rotti Largo, I've had the pleasure of watching her grow from little Carmela Largo into the brilliant young lady she is today. Here is Luigi Largo, to say a few words of introduction for his sister."

Automatic applause from the audience as Luigi replaces Yohji at the podium. He's dressed in a sharp black tux, and his hair is gelled so heavily that it looks like a piece of architecture. Stepping up to the podium, he smiles around at the crowd, and looks genuinely happy to be there.

"Hello everybody. First of all, I'd like to thank UniMed on behalf of my sister, Amber Sweet. This award means more to her more than you know. When she first approached me and asked if I would introduce her for this thing, I had some reservations. But then I thought, hell, why not. I'll only get to do this a couple more times, her wedding and funeral maybe, so I might as well use this opportunity tell the world what I think of my baby sister."

He pauses here, and looks straight into Amber's eyes. She thinks that if she had a heart anymore, it would be touched.

"Most of you know Amber as the artist, the singer, and the humanitarian, but I want to tell you about a different side of Amber Sweet. When Amber was fifteen years old, she killed a dog by heavily sedating it and letting it eat lead-based paint. When she was nineteen, she forged the paperwork to deny a kidney transplant to an ex-boyfriend who dumped her. In her early twenties, she was having a hundred-fifty to two hundred surgeries a year. Amber Sweet has slept with at least fifty different men, including her zydrate dealer. She's a filthy, fucking, selfish little whore. She puts money in the pockets of the dealers she supposedly tries to keep off the streets."

At this point, security guards are tentatively creeping across the stage towards Luigi, but they're taking their time. If he finishes his speech before they can stop him, they won't have to confront him.

"But the worst part is what a fucking _coward_ Amber is. She's so concerned about being a marketable product, but the truth is, she doesn't give a shit about anything she does. Amber's given up on everything and anyone she ever cared about, and it makes me fucking sick, because she can do better. So everybody, put your hands together for my fucking baby sister, Amber Sweet."

Luigi Largo stomps off the stage, leaving Amber stunned in his wake. The audience mutters uneasily, and she can feel all the inquisitive eyes piercing into her. She doesn't feel sad. She's not even hurt, really. Surprised, yes, although she should have expected this. Yohji hurries up to the abandoned microphone and somehow musters up an awkward laugh.

"Whoops, it looks like we've just witnessed some Largo sibling rivalry." It's not funny at all, but people laugh because it's easier than feeling things for themselves. Amber is sick to her stomach, but she steps onto the stage with a smile.

She gives her pre-planned, well packaged speech. She thanks the right people. UniMed, for the award. Her fans, for believing in her and for contributing to the charities she promotes. Her daddy, for being so supportive of all her endeavors. (Her daddy, who never showed up after all.) The Geneco staff for their helpfulness and ingenuity. She pretends to be choked up throughout the entire speech. She displays exactly the right amount of emotion to appear moved by the honor of receiving this award, but not so much that her make-up runs unattractively.

Lastly, she thanks her brothers, Pavi and Luigi, for inspiring her to be a better person every day.


	20. Chapter 20

The problem with sneaking around behind her father's back and using her own surGENs for everything is that she becomes completely dependent on that one group of people. If a couple of her surGENs go on vacation at the same time, she's fucked. A few days before her biggest show ever at the Genetic Opera, this is precisely what happens.

After an entire afternoon of pleading with her father, she finally gets clearance for a measly Rhinoplasty and cheek augmentation. Just a drop in the bucket towards fixing the mess that is her face, Amber thinks, but she 'll have to take what she can get. She thanks him heavily and flounces off to get cut. She's already flipping through a mental catalog of possible noses and face shapes, with consideration toward the present trends in cosmetic surgery fashion.

Amber has grown to trust her personal crew of surGENs and genterns. Under the loving touch of their scalpels, she's had her entire body re-arranged. On their operating tables, she's spent many of the best moments of her life, bleeding and fading in and out of consciousness. In fact, the idea of being operated on by an unfamiliar face, it makes Amber a little queasy.

She goes under the knife anyways, because Rotti hasn't given her a choice. Because at least she can get an extra heavy dose of zydrate from the Graverobber. Because she needs it.

And wouldn't you know, they botch the surgery. Her face looks like a fucking crime scene, and seeing it, she's almost happy. Because now her daddy will have to give her the full work-up: A whole new face for her performance. She feels certain that this is the year she will outshine Blind Mag, and everyone will go home talking about her. Amber Sweet.

But her daddy resists allowing her to get the surgery. He gives her a bunch of shit about how he didn't have the same privileges as her when he was young, and how surgery won't make her happy, or something. But surgery _will_ make her happy. Happier than this, anyways. She tells him again and again, she can't sing like this. Doesn't he still want her to sing?

When he catches a glimpse of her mangled face, his breath catches in his throat so quickly that he coughs and sputters, gags, has to sit down. Amber can see that his illness is progressing more rapidly than she thought, and she asks if he's alright.

After that, he caves and gives her permission to get a brand new face. "Thank you, daddy," she says, kissing him on the jowly old cheek. He recoils, just slightly, and Amber skips off to go back under the knife.

While the team of genterns and surGENs are prepping her for surgery, she notices that one of the two surGENs is missing, replaced by a different man. "What happened to the other guy?" she asks.

"He's in the ICU upstairs," a gentern says. "Mr. Largo came in here after he heard about you. He called Doctor Boswick a fuck up and stabbed him in the gut. Luckily for Boswick, we're already in a hospital. He should be fine."

"Yeah, lucky for him," Amber mutters. She's a little surprised to hear Luigi did that for her, after his speech. It was probably just because her botched face would look bad for the Largo name. The surgery is all set up. Amber tells the surGENs that if they fuck up again, they'll all have their real organs repossessed due to an unfortunate "paperwork error".

The surgery goes fine, but because of the magnitude of the work done, doctors advise her to stay in bed for a few days to let it heal properly. No, Amber says. Just slap some super glue on it, because she has a show tonight. No unsightly stitches.

The surGENs have reservations about this, but nobody is stupid enough to say no to miss Amber Sweet, anymore, so they do as she says. They roll her seat into a room with mirrored panels all around, so she can see her new face in panoramic glory. She has to admit, despite their previous blunder, this work is flawless. "It's decent," she says. "But next time, maybe you can do it right the _first _time, hm?"

She floats through the rest of the day on a zydrate induced cloud, preparing for the Genetic Opera.

* * *

If Amber Sweet wasn't so fucking high, her exposed face would sting like a bitch as tears roll down her cheeks. Sometime during the Opera's intermission, a gentern brings Amber's fallen face to her dressing room and hands it to her. Seeing it only makes her sob harder and the gentern hurries away. Amber's valets stands on either side of her, rubbing her shoulders. Maybe they're trying to comfort her, but it isn't working.

She pushes them away and yells at them to back the fuck up, she doesn't need them breathing down her neck all the time. Maybe their feelings are hurt. Amber doesn't know, and doesn't care. She half expects Pavi to come in any moment and rescue her but she knows better, really. All that guardian angels stuff was bullshit.

Someone knocks on the dressing room door. "Go away!" Amber yells.

The door opens anyways, and a gentern steps inside. Amber is surprised to see that the gentern is Sal, arms crossed over her chest, hair pulled back in a bun. Amber doesn't even recognize her at first.

It's no secret that Geneco hires attractive young women to assist with surgeries, luring them into the job with free medical training and good benefits. It's a difficult and demeaning job, but not as demeaning as the work these girls might be getting into otherwise. When Sal was first hired, she wasn't even twenty-five years old, and was working at Geneco part time to help her widowed father pay rent. Carmela was two or three years old, and Sal took to her immediately.

When Carma's brothers wiggled out of babysitting, Sal usually took over. She was good at making young Carmela do things she didn't want to do, like take baths or eat her vegetables. But as she got older, she grew bored with her gentern nanny, and began to treat her the same as the other Geneco employees: with disregard. But Sal never stopped caring about Carmela, even when she became Amber Sweet, even when she became cold and jaded. Sal has always looked out for her little Carma.

It's been almost thirty years since Sal started working for Geneco and it shows, despite numerous rhytidectomies. Despite breast augmentations and collagen injections, despite chemical peels. She has that look that older women with too many surgeries get, of over-processed tissue, slightly glossy like a plastic doll. Limited mobility in the face. That look that Amber will have soon, long before her time.

"Sal? You look.... really old." Amber says.

"It was bound to happen eventually," Sal says with a shrug. Amber isn't sure if she's talking about her own aging, or Amber's face falling off. "Did you hear that Blind Mag is dead? Rotti killed her on stage, just a few minutes ago."

Amber laughs.

"I thought that would cheer you up," says Sal. "I guess you'll be the new face of Geneco, then. Congratulations."

"Too bad I don't _have_ a face," Amber mutters.

"Don't worry, dear. Your surGENs will have you fixed up, good as new. Although you might want to request some stitches this time, instead of the super glue trick. It looks nasty for awhile but it'll hold it much better."

"I know that." Sal always talks to Amber like she's a child, and she hates it. "Please leave, I want to be alone."

"I understand," Sal replies, and turns to leave. "But before I go... let me tell you something."

"No, I don't care."

Sal ignores her, as usual. "You'd better stop having so many surgeries, or you'll look like me before you're thirty. You can't be perfect. You'd be better off doing what everyone else does."

"And what does everyone else do?" Amber spits. If it were any gentern but Sal, she would have her fired. Sal is the closest thing Amber has to a friend anymore.

"Find someone who thinks you are perfect, no matter what."

Sal leaves and Amber stays in her dressing room for most of the show, sulking. Her curiosity finally gets the better of her and she leaves the dressing room just in time for her father accuse her brothers of being creatures, and disown Amber for being disgusting, and then die on stage. Right there. In front of everybody. The fucking geezer, he always had to have the last word. Amber wants to yell at his body, to scream at her her father's corpse that her brothers are better men than he ever was, and that he never bothered to understand any of them.

But it's too fucking late for that. Rotti has already been assigned his room in hell by now, most likely. This is the cherry on the shit cake.

Rotti Largo's mind had obviously been slipping in his last days, the doctors report. Despite plotting such an elaborate scheme to get revenge on Nathan Wallace, he overlooked such obvious details as: If Shiloh _had_ murdered her father onstage, the public would be unlikely to welcome the girl as the new head of Geneco. The company's image would plummet. In a similar oversight, Shiloh would have no idea how to run a company, having been locked in her room for her entire life.

Amber thinks it's bullshit. Rotti Largo was a cold bastard but his mind was sharp as a tack, and it was as sharp as a tack until the very moment of his death. But she doesn't say anything. Amber can tell Luigi wants to believe, _needs_ to believe this.

"So, that shit pop said at the opera... was only because he was losing his mind?" Luigi asks a doctor. Amber has to look away, his face is so pathetically twisted with hope. "Just out of curiosity."

Amber shoots a look at the doctor. It's brief, but the meaning is clear: _Don't fuck this up, or else_. The doctor stutters. "Um, well, it's impossible to know for sure-" Amber glares. "I mean, yes. We're pretty sure he was, um, wrong. He didn't feel that way, probably... Certainly, even."

"I thought as much," Luigi smirks. "Pop loved me. He might have been telling the truth about Pavi, though. He always hated that fucking faggot."

Later that day, an unlucky lawyer dictates Rotti's will to the three Largo siblings. To everyone's surprise, Rotti has left the entirety of Geneco to Amber Sweet. Luigi kills the lawyer before he can finish saying her name. He turns toward Amber and for a second she thinks that he's going to kill her too, but an ominous little _click_ makes everybody freeze. Luigi turns his head, slowly, to see Rotti's henchwomen pointing their guns directly at him. They had stood by to find out who their next employer would be, and they found out. Now they're just doing their jobs.

"_What the fuck!_" Luigi screams. "Why would he do this to me? To us! Amber doesn't know, fucking, _anything, _not a fucking thingabout business, she'll ruin Geneco! Is this some fucking horrible joke?" But it isn't a joke, and nobody's laughing. Amber has to admit that he's right about the business, she'd never anything about managing it, but she isn't going to turn the company over to Luigi.

They'll just have to compromise.


	21. Chapter 21

Amber takes over her father's office. She doesn't do any work in it, just lounges in his chair with her feet kicked up on the desk. She looks through his drawers. She sticks gum under the desktop. After half a day or so, she gets bored with this. The frosty palette of the room is too depressing, she tells her assistants, and she needs a more friendly environment. Amber works with an interior designer to have it completely remodeled.

The modern high-backed chairs are replaced by over-stuffed, red and gold Victorian armchairs. The gray walls are plastered over with damask wallpaper. Throw pillows with the same damask print are nestled against the Victorian chairs and couch. The marble floors are covered with plush red carpet. Even the desk is replaced by a huge wooden one, an antique, the designer tells Amber. One of a kind, handcrafted in 1870. Amber sticks her gum under this one too.

They knock out the entire wall behind her chair and replace it with windows, to bring in as much light as possible. Heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes can be pulled over the windows for privacy. Amber can tell that the henchwomen would like to rip her in half for all this, for destroying Rotti's beloved office, the same way he destroyed Amber's studio five years ago.

All of this only takes about a day and a half. After that, Amber gets to work on deciding what to do about keeping Geneco running. As much as she'd like to believe that she's a self-sustaining celebrity now, her reputation still relies on Rotti's company. Her brother's livelihoods also depend on it, and so do people's lives, as if she gives a shit about that.

Amber summons Luigi and Pavi to her office. Just like when she was young, and had her first art unveiling, they drag their feet but eventually arrive.

Pavi throws himself onto the couch, in the place where Amber herself would have been, if Rotti were still alive. Luigi sits in his usual chair. For a moment, the situation seems so bizarre that Amber wonders if it's all been a dream, but the moment passes.

"I've asked you here to discuss the future of Geneco," She says, folding her hands over her desk.

"Isn't that your problem now?" Luigi asks, glaring up at her from under his eyebrows. Nobody can glare like Luigi Largo.

"Actually, I think it's _our _problem. I'd like to give each of you thirty percent shares of the company."

"Why should you get forty, then?" Luigi sneers. "And Pavi doesn't deserve shit. He's fucking useless. I say, you and me should go fifty-fifty."

"Hey!" Pavi says, looking up from his hand mirror with alarm. "That's is not-a fair!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Amber shouts. "We need Pavi too. And I get forty percent because at the moment, I own one hundred percent of Geneco, and I don't have to give you a penny."

"But you will, because you don't want the company to go under," Luigi suggests.

"Exactly."

Amber had figured out a long time ago and that between the three siblings, they each carried a piece of whatever made their father great. Luigi inherited Rotti Largo's business sense, work-ethic and fiery temper. In Amber remains Rotti's crafty and powerful mind. She's also mastered the ability to maintain the public image of a saint, no matter what she does. Paviche Largo is left with his father's passion for women and fun, and the boundless charisma that Rotti was known for.

It's unlikely, Amber thinks, that any one of them could run Geneco on their own with the same amount success as their father. In fact, Amber thinks that Rotti considered this himself when writing his will. If he had left Geneco to either of the boys, they would have tried to run it themselves, and driven it straight into the ground. That left Amber. Amber, who never had any interest in the family business. Amber, who had never learned the first thing about managing a company. Rotti would have known that she would have to turn to her brothers for help. Even from beyond the grave, Rotti is still manipulating them.

The three siblings stay in the office for the rest of the afternoon and evening, to sort out the specifics of the deal. Genterns come and go with papers to sign, with meals on trays, with important people to introduce. Luigi and Pavi agree to take over specific departments within Geneco. They discuss potential changes in company protocol. They drink shots and eat cookies. They detail and sign contracts. They go over the spring catalog of new editions to the Geneco line of cosmetic surgeries. They drink more shots. Luigi writes up a contract that dictates that Pavi is to be "the Chairman of Blowjobs", which Pavi signs. More shots. More paperwork.

It's well past midnight when they finally adjourn the meeting, and Amber feels they've got a lot done. She pours another drink while assistants clear the paperwork from her desk. It's only after she downs the shot that she notices Luigi, shadowed in the doorway, watching her.

"Do you need something?" Amber says, standing up.

"No." He starts towards the desk and Amber thinks he's heading towards her, but he walks past, to lean against the windowpane. She walks up to stand beside him, but instead of staring out the window, she looks at her brother. The neon lights outside cast colorful, shifting reflections over his profile. Neither of them speak for a long time.

"I miss him," Luigi says. His voice is strained, cracked with emotion, and Amber thinks he might be trying not to cry. Her heart twists in her chest.

"Me too," Amber says. It feels like a lie, but what else can she say? That Rotti was a slimy old bastard, and she's glad he's finally kicked the bucket?

Before Amber knows what's going on, Luigi is kissing her with a degree of tenderness and passion she thinks she's never felt before. Before she can think, she's kissing back, and he's pushed her against the glass. He stops kissing her and looks her over, at her long neck flickering to her quickened pulse, at the pale mounds of her breasts in her corset. Pinned against the windowpane, Amber feels like an insect on display.

Luigi is pushing up her skirt, pulling down her panties. Push and pull, an orbit. He kisses her neck and and deeply inhales the chemical, perfumed scent of her hair. Amber wraps her legs around his waist and before she knows it, she's sliding down onto him. Before she can over-think it, Luigi is fucking her against the window, for God and the world to see.


	22. Chapter 22

Rotti Largo's funeral is the biggest that the city has ever seen, Luigi and Pavi make sure of that. They spend as much as their accountants and financial advisors will allow, with Amber's permission, of course. She doesn't even consider denying their request. To be cheap with Rotti's funeral would be a slap in Luigi's face, and pretty much like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Amber isn't an idiot.

People who never even met Rotti Largo are openly weeping. Everybody who can't attend watch the funeral on television. Even people who hated Geneco, despised the repossessions, seem to feel a small loss for Rotti's passing. Better the evil you know, than the evil you you don't know, as the saying goes.

The employees of Geneco all stop by to give their last respects. The genterns wear little black dresses, fishnet stockings, and dark veils instead of their usual red visors. It's slutty, but the general consensus is that Rotti would have wanted it this way.

The day is a long string of speeches and opera performances. Rotti Largo loved opera. It was his true passion, aside from his company, and several of his favorite singers make an appearance at the funeral. Yohji Feu makes a speech, something about friendship. Anecdotes about their youth, and how everyone said that Rotti was the rational one and Yohji was the dreamer. How they used to discuss the possibility of merging Geneco and UniMed, but they never got around to it. How it was too late now. He says some other stuff, about cherishing the time you have, and making time for your friends. Amber yawns.

Throughout the day, Luigi and Amber are inseparable. During some of the speeches and the musical pieces especially, Luigi grasps her hand so tightly that his knuckles turn white and her fingers ache. Anyone who notices them think that Luigi is being a good big brother, supporting his baby sister in her time of need. The truth is more of the reverse.

Amber doesn't know how Pavi is feeling. With his mask, she never can. During the funeral, he's followed around by an even larger entourage of girls than usual. It's for comfort, Pavi comments to the press. He doesn't think he can be alone right now. He sounds like he's been crying, and the girls sigh over him in a fresh wave of sympathy.

Each of the siblings have a chance to say a few words about their father for the funeral. Amber's speech goes something like this:

"My father was known as a lot of things to a lot of different people. To the world, he was Rotti Largo, founder of Geneco and savior of millions. To his employees, he was the boss. To the people that Geneco gave a second chance for life, he was a savior. But to me, he will always be daddy."

"He gave my brothers and I the life he wished he'd had. We had everything we wanted, and he raised us to be clever, hard-working, and compassionate human beings. When I was young, he used to tell me that although everyone believed Geneco was his legacy, my brothers and I would always be his greatest achievements. I'm ashamed to say that I took him for granted. He gave everything to my brothers and I, and left nothing for himself. As a little girl I sometimes got mad at him because he didn't have much time for me, but now I realize that he was busy working, trying to save the world. That was my daddy... always making hard choices to save the world."

Amber is weeping, fucking weeping, with fat tears rolling down her face. The speech has opened some door in her heart that she wasn't even aware of closing, and years of emotions spill out. She had planned to get a little teary eyed, a little shower of misery, but this was more of a thunderstorm. She pauses and takes a few deep breaths to calm down, because her words are becoming incoherent.

"I... I'm sure everyone will miss Rotti very much, myself and my brothers most of all. I can only hope that we'll be able to honor his memory by running Geneco as successfully as he did."

Her valets escort her off the stage. Lately, they've become nothing but big, burly nuisances. Since she's inherited her father's bodyguards, her valets are just redundant, and they know too much about Amber's zydrate addiction. She decides to have them put down. She almost feels sad. She's had some good times with old Dirk and Max, but everything has it's time.

Sometime during the funeral, Amber is approached by a tall woman in a black Chanel dress, with a matching black jacket and heels. She's so well dressed that Amber wonders if she's someone from the modeling industry, and if she's about to experience one of those awkward moments where she's supposed to remember a name but can't. The woman's auburn hair flows loose over her shoulders, and her long bangs cast shadows over her eyes.

"Amber? It's me, Carol," the woman says, and extends her hand. Amber shakes it with a little fake smile. The name Carol sparks something in her memory, but it hangs just out of mental reach.

"Hello, Carol. I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but do I know you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I should have explained. You were only a child when we met. I was Luigi's girlfriend for a little over a year."

_We have just lost cabin pressure, Amber thinks. "The artist girlfriend?" she asks, disbelieving._

Carol laughs, a harsh, raspy laugh. She's probably smoker. Probably, she could use a new pair of lungs and airways, but who didn't in this day and age. "That's me. I'm sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances."

"Yeah," Amber says, because she can't think of anything else. "Uh... so, do you still make art?" She feels stupid immediately afterwards and wishes she could retract the question.

"Sometimes. I'm so busy taking care of the kids these days, I don't usually have time. I've been to a few of your galleries, Amber. You're quite talented."

Amber barely hears the second part of her answer, focusing instead on the comment about her children. She wonders if her husband is the dog-man. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, "Don't you mean puppies?"

The smile falls from Carol's face, and an expression of faraway pain replaces it. "So your brother told you?"

"Sort of. I guessed about some of it."

Carol sighs, and rubs the back of her neck. "Actually, I never married Anton. My husband is a different man, I met him while traveling. I left Anton right after Luigi and I split up. I made a huge mistake, cheating on your brother. I don't expect you to forgive me. It was horrible thing to do and there's no excuse for it."

"No offense, but how are you still... you know... alive?" Amber asks.

"I asked myself the same thing, for years. I still don't know for sure. He was so angry when he found out... He came after Anton. To escape, he fled the country, back to Russia. I haven't heard from him since. But for some reason, Luigi never hurt me. He screamed in my face, called me a lot of names... Slut, whore, fucking bitch..."

"I know the feeling," Amber mutters.

"But he never tried to hurt me. I'm not certain, but I think it was because he still loved me. At least a little."

"Wow," Amber sighs. "You're one lucky woman." She could be talking about escaping Luigi's wrath, or being loved by him. Or maybe it's both.

Carol wholeheartedly agrees. Amber says she has to go, and they say their goodbyes. Amber leaves with her head spinning. In the last few days, her father died, she's become head of an enormous company, and found out that Luigi is capable of acting human. The entire world has been turned on it's head, and she's struck with the realization of how fast these things can happen.


	23. Chapter 23

Almost done, you guys. Only one more chapter after this one. C:

* * *

Amber and Luigi have so much to do in the next few days that they barely see each other. Amber doesn't get a chance to talk to him about Carol, but she's kept so busy with work, it doesn't bother her much. She hadn't realized how much effort it took to run a business. Amber stops seeing the Graverobber. Even if she had time, she has no desire to get fucked up on Z lately.

Sometime during those busy few days, she discretely orders her henchwomen to dispatch the valets. They're so psychologically neutered that they don't even put up a fight. Amber buys a couple of purebred rottweilers to fill the void. She names them Dirk and Max, in honor of her poor, dead manservants. They do most of the same things their human namesakes did: follow her around, drool all over her, and try to kill anyone who gets too close. Naturally, the henchwomen despise them.

As a symbol of Geneco's commitment to change, Amber auctions her fallen face to charity. People go fucking ballistic, offering enormous sums for it. Luigi kills the top three bidders. Amber pretends to be pissed at him, but she's actually a little flattered. It seems like nobody else is going to bid, until Pavi does. Luigi looks like he's about to stab him, too, but Amber's henchwomen stop him. Pavi wears the face for weeks, mostly to piss off Luigi.

_The first time Amber gets a chance to talk to Luigi is during a lengthy press conference. All three siblings are there, answering boring questions with as much sincerity as they can. Like a schoolgirl, Amber writes Luigi a note on a little slip of paper and sneaks it to him behind Pavi's back. The note says: I met Carol. You said she was dead. Why isn't she?_

Luigi reads the note and he looks so shocked, Amber wouldn't be surprised if his eyeballs rolled out of his head.

"Mister Largo, would you please tell us why you're taking over thirty percent of Geneco?"

"There are-a two mister Largos here, actually," Pavi corrects him. "You'll-a have to address us by the Pavi and Luigi."

"I'm sorry, Luigi then."

"_Huh? Oh. Well, Amber doesn't have as much experience with Geneco as I do, from helping Pop. And..." he shoots a pointed look at Amber. "And even if someone owns more of the company than me, I still care about Geneco, and I don't want it to suffer."_

"Here's a question for Miss Sweet. What do you think about the public optimism towards you as the new head of Geneco? Is everyone's trust well placed?"

"_Well, I certainly hope so. I don't see why the public would lie about that. I mean, it's such a nice thing, you'd think there would be no point in lying about it. I can tell you this, my brothers and I will do our best to make everyone's positive outlook become the truth."_

"Pavi, how do you feel about being partially in charge of Geneco?"

By now, Pavi's catching onto Luigi and Amber's subtextual dialogue. "I'm excited about this-a opportunity. I think I have-a much to offer Geneco, and I can make-a it a better company... that is, if-a my siblings will try not to mess everything up," he says, glaring at each of them. The press chuckles and Amber remembers why Pavi has thirty percent, anyways. He has a way of setting people at ease.

"Mr. Largo... sorry, I mean Luigi, do you have any plans for Geneco that you'd like to announce?"

"_We've got lots of things in development, but nothing official yet. All I can say for sure is that Amber and I are both going do our best, and we'll see what happens from there."_

"Excuse-a the Pavi, but aren't you forgetting someone?" Pavi interrupts.

"_And maybe if Amber will make a more serious commitment to Geneco, the arrangement will be more successful," Luigi continues. "Just a thought."_

"_And maybe if Luigi really applies himself, and works on controlling his temper, he might have more to offer Geneco." Amber glares at him. "Just a suggestion."_

"Bother, sister, please..." Pavi says, but it's too late. Luigi's got that glint in his eye.

"Well MAYBE, if Geneco would stop being such a controlling, arrogant BITCH, I wouldn't have to kick the shit out of her so often!"

And all Amber can do is laugh.

* * *

It really just gets better from there. It's the closest thing reality has to compare with "happily ever after", but it's not always happy, and it's not really forever. It's just something that's better than it used to be. With the old king dead, the princess is released from the tower, and from her zydrate spell. With the help of her brothers, she rules over her father's kingdom, and things have never looked better.

Amber still sings occasionally, and she starts painting again. She gets Luigi and some genterns to help her set up a new art studio, once again on the fifth floor of the Geneco building. She even hires a team of architects and builders to create high ceilings for her studio. This involves knocking out a good portion of the ceiling between the fifth and sixth floor, and building inlays to create the illusion of a domed roof in the middle of a skyscraper. The ceiling is plated with mirrors to become a faceted, sparkling dome. Amber thinks it's lovely.

The room is stocked with every kind of artistic media she might attempt. In an imitation of a loft space, the floor is built at several different levels. In the very middle of the room is a big square dip in the floor, with built-in benches around the inside, to create a trendy little sitting area. The walls are all white, except for the exterior wall, which is just a solid grid of windows.

Luigi gets stuck doing a lot of the official Geneco stuff, because Amber is busy with her art and Pavi is busy being the Chairman of Blowjobs. But it's fine with Luigi, he says. This is the work he always wanted to do. Amber relinquishes her father's old office to him. More often then not, though, he brings his paperwork into her studio and works on it there. That way he can ask her for input, which he promptly ignores, or argues with. When he isn't working he hangs around anyways.

"Luigi, can't you go somewhere else? I'm busy." She's making a clay sculpture of a creature. It appears to be half man, half dog, and quite possibly Russian.

"Yeah, whatever," he says, but doesn't leave. He's dragged a big armchair into her studio, and he's lounging around in it while she sculpts. Sometimes he watches her, but a lot of the time, he just talks. He's doing the latter now.

"You know what? In monarchies, brothers and sisters used to get married all the fucking time. I guess it was to keep royal blood in the family, or some shit like that."

Amber raises an eyebrow. "Is that a proposal?" she asks.

"Fuck no. I'm just sayin'. Hey, your man dog's nose looks too squished. You should fix that," Luigi says.

"I'm not finished yet and you know it. Just shut the fuck up."

_Amber's first art show in six years goes perfectly. With the help of Sal and a few other employees, Amber's come up with a plan to eliminate repossessions. The proceeds of all her art shows will go to help people who're falling behind on their transplant payments. Other artists are encouraged to do shows for the same cause. Flyers and buttons everywhere spread the good news. Buy art, keep the repomen at bay. Stop repossessions: donate. As it turns out, the program manages to earn more than enough money to make up for the late payments. People no longer have to live in terror, as long as the upper-class continues to buy art._

But Amber doesn't create art to save lives. She doesn't create art to get good reviews, or humanitarian awards. She creates art because it's what she does. Ever since she was a little girl named Carmela Largo, drawing Pooh Bear with crayons in front of the television, she has itched to create. In the past, she has been a canvas, during her stint as a model. She has been a paintbrush, using herself as a tool. But by far, her favorite thing to be is an artist.

Amber doesn't try to create what people like, anymore. She just paints whatever she wants to, or things she finds beautiful. She does a lot of oil paintings on canvas. To her surprise, people love her new direction. The reviews call it a refreshing, straightforward approach to art. A fresh breeze of vintage beauty. It's such a lovely contrast to the pretentious, modern trash art that's been "in" lately.

_Note to self, Amber thinks. Don't take advice from Luigi anymore._

But she knows she will, anyways. Luigi has always given her his complete, honest opinion. He never tries to soften the truth or sucks up to her. Everybody goes out of their way to avoid offending Amber Sweet, but not Luigi. He tells her when she gets a bad surgery. He tells her when a dress makes her ass look fat. He tells her when a painting is a massive failure. Sometimes, it's enough to make Amber want to smack him across the face.

But other times, when he looks at her and tells her that she's so fucking beautiful, that he can't stop staring at her goddamn legs, well... it makes Amber feel gorgeous. Because anybody else can talk about her legs all day and it won't mean shit, but from Luigi, it means everything.

After awhile, Amber starts to notice Pavi bringing around the same girl, over and over. She points it out to Luigi. "Oh yeah," he says. "I thought I saw her before. Fucking weird. You think it's his girlfriend?"

As it turns out, it is. About a week later, Pavi invites her to dinner with the family and introduces her. "I'd like-a for you to meet Anna... she is the Pavi's girlfriend. Anna, this is-a the Pavi's brother Luigi and sister Amber." Anna giggles and waves at them. She seems like a nice enough girl. Short, ginger hair, blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her nose. Oddly, she doesn't seem like the kind of girl who usually falls for Pavi. During dinner, it becomes apparent that this girl doesn't hang off of his every whim like other girls do.

_Then the strangest thing of all happens. After dinner, Pavi arranges for a driver to take her home, and kisses her at the door. Just a kiss. "What the fuck was that!" Luigi yells, when Anna is out of earshot._

"What is-a what?"

"Don't play dumb, you fucking freak. Why didn't you bang her like you always do?"

Pavi looks like he wants to make a break for it, but the hallway is blocked by both Amber and Luigi. Pavi sighs. "She is-a... saving herself." His voice is so low Amber can barely hear him. "For marriage."

"Ha!" Luigi laughs. "Ha ha! Oh my God."

"Wow, Pavi. Big step for you. What's so great about this one?" Amber asks.

"She is-a from a religious sect. They do not watch-a television, or read-a the paper. She has never heard-a the Pavi's name in her life... she treat-a the Pavi like a regular person. It 's nice."

"_Why would anyone treat you like a regular person?" Luigi says, and stalks off. Amber exchanges a small, secret smile with her youngest brother before following Luigi. Maybe everyone needs an honest opinion, or maybe it's about being challenged. Amber spends the night in Luigi's room, and then the next night, and the night after that._

"Why don't you just bring your shit up here, if you're gonna be fucking around in my apartment all the time anyway," Luigi snaps at her, when she uses his toothbrush for the third morning in the row.

"Fine, I will." And Amber hasn't gone back to her room yet.


	24. Chapter 24

Last chapter you guys! Thank you, to all of my reviewers... you've made me happy. Especially Mii, you always gave awesome, in-depth comments to every chapter. I really looked forward to reading what you had to think about the chapter. That goes to the rest of you, as well. I thought I was done writing but since this had a good reception I think I'm going to do at least one more story... it's going to be written as a musical. Like, in song. Hopefully I can pull it off. XD

* * *

Miss Amber Sweet curls up on the sofa in the sitting room, a sketchbook propped up against her knees. Several pages have been ripped out, and lay scattered on the couch and carpet. She's got a box of colored pencils on the sofa beside her, but most of the pencils have fallen out, rolling between the cushions where they'll probably not be found. Amber's hair is black today, that artificial shade of black that appears blue under direct light. It falls into her eyes and she brushes it behind her ear.

On television, a pride of lionesses is stalking a wounded wildebeest. They've already separated it from the protection of it's herd, and they're just now going in for the kill. Amber doesn't really notice any of this. She's just doing gesture sketches, thirty second doodles that barely capture the frame and movement. Little snapshots of nature.

She's so involved in her drawings that she doesn't hear Luigi sneaking up behind her.

"Hey!" he yells when he's right behind her head, making her jump. The pencil flies out of her hand and rolls across the floor.

"Dammit, Luigi!" Amber yells, but he just laughs. While she's digging around under the coffee table for her pencil, Luigi jumps over the back of the couch and lands on her box of colored pencils. Amber can hear of them snap under his weight.

"Oops, sorry," he says, with a big shit-eating grin that doesn't make him look sorry at all. He spots the remote control sticking out between the cushions and makes a grab for it, but Amber's too quick. "Ha!" she barks, holding the remote above her head, as if he can't reach it.

"Why are you watching this boring shit anyways?" Luigi says. He snatches the remote out of Amber's hand but before he changes the channel, she tackles him hard enough to knock the remote from his hand. It hits the edge of the table and the batteries tumble out. Amber reaches for it but Luigi pins her down on the couch, laughing.

"I was _trying_ to sketch lions," Amber whines, struggling beneath him. Craning her neck to see around his arm, she spots her sketchbook on the floor, it's pages bent double under it. "Hey! You fucked up my drawings!"

"You don't need 'em. You can do better ones," Luigi says. Amber shoves him with all her strength and wiggles away of him, but they end up wrestling. They roll off the couch and Amber hits her shoulder on the coffee table, which only makes her fight harder.

They roll around the floor for a solid five minutes, scattering art supplies in their wake. After awhile, wrestling somehow turns into embracing. Luigi's lying on his back, propped up on his elbows, with Amber stretched across his chest. He spots her mangled sketchbook on the floor and picks up up, unsuccessfully trying to smooth out the wrinkled pages. "These are pretty good," he says, flipping through the sketchbook.

"I like this picture of a cow." Luigi jabs his finger at one of the pages. Amber snatches the book out of his hands and peers at the drawing. She frowns.

"That's not a cow, it's a sable antelope."

"What the fuck ever," Luigi growls, and kisses her to make her shut up.

"Da-" squeaks a little voice. Luigi looks up and sees a little face poking out from behind the sofa. It's a little boy with wild, dark hair and a constellation of freckles over the bridge of his nose.

"Stupid kid, I'm not your dad. Pavi is your dad. Now piss off."

"Da!" the boy repeats himself, as if maybe Luigi hadn't heard him correctly. He wobbles over to them, so unsteadily that Amber wonders how he even got all the way here. Somehow, he always does. Whenever little Silvio is allowed out of the sight of his babysitters or parents, he unfailingly tracks down his uncle Luigi. "Da, da, da," Silvio babbles.

"Fine, c'mere," Luigi grumbles. Amber rolls off so Luigi can sit up and hoist the toddler into his lap. "You're more annoying than your dad, you know that?" Sivio laughs as if this is the funniest joke he's ever heard.

"Hey Silvee, do you wanna draw?" Amber says, wiggling a pencil between her thumb and forefinger. The boy follows the pencil back and fourth with eyes as big as saucers. "Wanna draw a picture?"

"No. Da." he says, which could mean anything, since those are his favorite two words and the only ones he uses frequently. He crawls out of Luigi's lap and reaches for the pencil in Amber's hand. She picks up Silvio and plops him on the couch with the sketchbook on his lap. She gives him the pencil and he immediately starts scribbling with the eraser. "Da, da, da," he sings. Amber takes the pencil, flips it so the point is touching the paper, and gives it back to Silvee.

"No," he says, which probably means thank you, and goes back to scribbling. Amber smiles, watching the look of dark concentration that settles over Silvio's features. It's the same expression worn by every artist, no matter how young or unskilled, during the process of creation.

Luigi hugs her from behind, pulls her down onto the carpet, and Amber thinks she has never been happier.


End file.
